Tron

When I saw Tron as a kid I was completely blown away. I saw it when I lived in Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, and not long after that I was living in Manila, Republic of the Philippines. You could find pirated copies of just about anything there, films, software, imitation fashion items even fake computers. So it was easy to get pirated Betamax copy of Tron, which I did. I watched that movie almost every single day, I kid thee not. Many times I didn’t have the time to watch the whole thing so I would go over the parts I liked. What got me, essentially, were the environments. That slick, monochromatic digital world with the glimmering highlights and occasional reflection and trim lighting, I wanted so badly to be able to go into that world. With the development of the Oculus Rift virtual reality device that may be possible in the near future, but for now we have the current video games. I once told somebody that I wished I could actually live in that world and he said it was too surreal. Awww, he doesn’t get it! That’s OK. So, I wanted to show some particular shots here.

Above is a tank on a ledge. Below, lightcycle arena/grid.

Above you see the light cycles as they are generated around the characters who pilot them. We take wireframe appearances like this for granted but back then they had to build a lot of this stuff by hand and make it appear like it was of a digital realm. Similar work was done for the glider landing sequence in Escape From New York.

Solar sailer, above. This vehicle had these gossamer (how often do you get to use that word?) wings structures that were very delicate.

The shot above is interesting because computers require an interface, and here within the world of the computer, itself, the characters use interfaces. So I think it’s fascinatingly circular to design this movie with computers, create an environment, and then create interface designs to fit the environment they created.

Above is what the landscape looked like in the areas that would translate as “urban” versus rural in the film.

Above is the interior of a tank. The center part rotated around the pilot.

The scene above is one of my favorites because of the shimmering water, the geometric environment and the glimmering highlights along some of the edges. In the image below you can see familiar reflections on the walls from the shimmering water. I just love that effect and it is called caustic light, something that can be replicated with 3ds Max, Maya, etc.

This last one here at the bottom is actually the head of Mickey Mouse as part of the Tron landscape. Being a Disney film they thought it would be fun to insert this Easter egg. It went by pretty fast so you had to pat attention.