Security cameras mounted next to doors that opened only by coded electronic key protected the top-secret project during production. Most of the film's designers worked in high-ceilinged rooms behind windows that had been draped in black cloth to prevent glare on the two or three monitors crowded before them. Another part of the Square studio is located in the shadow of the familiar Honolulu landmark known as Diamond Head. Here, at the Hawaii Film Studio's production facility, specially trained staff members spent hours working in customized body suits, bringing a unique physical personality to the series of complicated and realistic action sequences in the film. Sixteen specialized cameras, each silently and rapidly blinking a red light, are connected to computer screens for motion capture.
Huge speakers play a pre-recorded voice track.
The capture, with each and every bit of action recorded, is electronically sent back to the programmers at Harbor Court. The result of the scene is a 3-D stick figure that matches their movements, just one of a series of complex computer graphic procedures that the artists reference to create the finished feature film. To overcome technical problems, the programmers at Square developed in-house software tools. The accurate rendering of skin colors and textures and facial expressions, as well as hair details and clothing wrinkles as each character moves about, presented enormous challenges which needed to be answered by special solutions. Artists often went through hundreds of transformations and refinements as they labored on renderings for the film's many characters.