Silicon Graphics` Oscar-winning performance

Silicon Graphics said regardless of which film takes the Oscar for the `Best Achievement in Visual Effects` category at this year`s Academy Awards Ceremony, SGI will be right up there on the stage with the winner. Three films have been nominated for the Oscar from an initial choice of seven, SGI said. However, the special effects of all seven films were created on Silicon Graphics supercomputers. The seven films, all blockbusters, were `The Lost World: Jurassic Park`, `Starship Troopers`, `Titanic`, "Batman & Robin", "Contact", "Fifth Element" and "Men in Black". Each of the three successful nominations hopes to emulate the success of last year`s sensational winner, `Independence Day` -- another film that owed its special effects to Silicon Graphics computers. Silicon Graphics` Oscar-winning performance Silicon Graphics said regardless of which film takes the Oscar for the 'Best Achievement in Visual Effects' category at this year's Academy Awards Ceremony, SGI will be right up there on the stage with the winner. Three films have been nominated for the Oscar from an initial choice of seven, SGI said. However, the special effects of all seven films were created on Silicon Graphics supercomputers. The seven films, all blockbusters, were 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park', 'Starship Troopers', 'Titanic', "Batman & Robin", "Contact", "Fifth Element" and "Men in Black". Each of the three successful nominations hopes to emulate the success of last year's sensational winner, 'Independence Day' -- another film that owed its special effects to Silicon Graphics computers. The three nominated films are: The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Due to the advancements in Silicon Graphics workstation power, better interactivity with the creative tools and improvements in lightning software, artists were able to create more realistic and complex dinosaur motion, larger groups of dinosaurs and a higher level of action than in the film's predecessor, Jurassic Park. Starship Troopers This epic war film with it space effects was powered by Silicon Graphics workstations to mix digital and miniature ships to create the big sweeping shots and generate the metal-bending shots for ship collisions. Silicon Graphics systems also animated the alien bugs and rendered the shots making up the battle scenes. Titanic Over 300 Silicon Graphics workstations, using software from Alias/Wavefront, Softimage, Avid and Side Effects were used to create this monumental epic love story. It included a computer-generated ocean, thousands of computer-generated extras on deck and seamlessly match-moving the shots of actors on a deck set-piece with a 45-foot ship's model. "Digital effects technology is now an indispensable tool that visual effects artists use to bring a degree of realism to the screen that was either impractical or simply impossible to create a short while ago," says James Chiweshe, MD of Silicon Graphics sub-Saharan Africa. "Our company is proud to be an important part of the superb creative effort that went into all seven films.