HASTA LA VISTA ... TO YOUR LUNCH; UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD'S TERMINATOR 2 AIMING TO BE BEST 3-D ACTION ATTRACTION EVER.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

If the T-1000 was the ultimate Terminator, what does that make the T-1,000,000?

At least 1,000 times worse.

But the new Terminator 2 3-D attraction starring the ultimate spider from hell and now being built at Universal Studios Hollywood already has proven every bit as much of a technical challenge for its creators as the T-1,000,000 is for the show's protagonists.

The 12-minute attraction (with an eight-minute preshow in an anteroom) melds live actors, wind and mist generators, massive cyborgs, smoke and lights, automatic weapons, moving seats and the world's most expensive one-person roller coaster. That all combines with a three-dimensional film stretched across three screens, starring the original ``T2'' stars and directed by three Oscar winners.

``It kicks,'' said one of those Oscar winners, original ``T2'' director James Cameron. ``It's really cool.''

Once again, Arnold Schwarzenegger's ``good'' Terminator time travels from the future to a place somewhere around now to help Edward Furlong's budding savior of the human race.

Together they jump back to the future (wait, that's another Universal ride) to try to destroy the T-1,000,000 and the Skynet artificial intelligence it protects before the machines can wipe out the human race.

The attraction itself is also something of a sequel, a slightly updated version of the $60 million attraction that Cameron and co-directors John Bruno and Stan Winston first crafted for Universal's Orlando, Fla., site two years ago.

Now it's coming to Los Angeles, largely unchanged other than to accommodate additional design challenges such as tougher building codes and the ride's location atop a parking structure.

Already, the cast is rehearsing, and the concrete is curing on the massive structure, with an exterior mimicking the headquarters of Skynet's corporate creator, business bad guy Cyberdyne Systems.

The sleek futurist concrete exterior is purposely plunked down, just as Cyberdyne might do, in a place where it doesn't quite fit, along a small-town main street area of the theme park.

Little touches, such as a massive, pixelated version of a still scene from the movie, help decorate the exterior of the 700-seat theater and waiting areas. Near the attraction's exit, a restaurant, T2 store and decorative gardens are also being put in.

Fine-tuning those structures has been a months-long challenge for show organizers, who are racing toward a May 6 opening date, but nothing like the technical obstacles surrounding what ends up on the screen, its makers said.

``Jim asked me to design a show based on a script that he had worked on with Landmark Films,'' said Bruno, a longtime Cameron collaborator who won an Oscar for visual effects on Cameron's ``The Abyss'' and most recently directed ``Virus.'' ``He wanted to make a movie; he didn't want to do a gimmick.''

The first order of business was to visit every 3-D ride they could find, to see what audiences reacted to and what fell, well, flat.

One obvious change was needed: ``The overall rule was the camera had to move,'' Bruno said. ``No one ever did that before, and for a reason.''

That's because it's a pain in the rear.

``You're doing the shot twice, once for the left and once for the right eye,'' Bruno said. To get the slightly offset shots needed for each eye, you either use a bulky special camera that takes both shots at once or you shoot the same shot twice from ever so slightly different angles.

A related challenge has to do with ``motion control'' work, tracking precisely where objects are in a frame so special effects can be added later that move realistically within the frame.

And with 3-D, every one of those problems is multiplied by at least two.

``If it's off-center even a little bit, not only does it give you headaches, it looks bad, and the 3-D effect is lost,'' said Digital Domain's Michael Kanfer, who supervised the show's imaging effects work and has his own Oscar for visual effects on ``Titanic.''

As a result, most 3-D shots usually end up as locked down and immobile as a shorted-out cyborg.

Cameron didn't want that, leaving to Bruno and Digital Domain to figure out how best to make the camera move while still capturing both fast-moving 3-D shots and allowing for compelling special effects. With special software, a custom 450-pound camera and a few other tricks, they made it work.

``The cool part of any 3-D is the stuff coming at you, and you duck,'' said Kanfer. ``We exaggerated a lot of this to make it look cooler. It's like hyper-stereo vision.''

Yet another major complication was the decision to use 65mm film, instead of the industry-standard 35mm size, and to run that film at 30 frames per second, instead of the standard 24.

``What you get is three to four times the resolution of 35mm film,'' Bruno said. ``And 30 frames per second is just an incredibly huge leap in sharpness. After that, it's not as great (an incremental further improvement).''

The bigger format also meant special challenges while shooting. The sets at a former iron-mining camp near Joshua Tree National Monument in Riverside County had to be lit up like a Roman candle factory after a napalm attack to get the right post-apocalyptic look, for instance.

And higher-resolution film meant higher-resolution special effects, straining even Digital Domain's cutting-edge computer systems.

``Digital Domain had to come up with a way to store that information, five times as much information, and do it for each eye,'' Bruno said. ``They had to do 10 times what is done in a regular movie'' with each effects shot.

To meld live-action actors with those on the screen, Bruno enlisted magician David Copperfield's chief illusion designer to figure out how to make the performers appear to jump out of the screen and then back onto it.

The trick is an involved one, using a unique projection screen and a remarkable, rebuilt Harley-Davidson motorcycle attached to a roller-coaster track hidden under the stage.

Despite all the show's gee-whiz technology, however, not all the effects rely on high tech.

At one point, the monstrous T-1,000,000 is frozen, just as happened to the T-1000 in ``T2,'' and shatters. As shards of the creature ``fly'' past ducking onlookers, misting nozzles above the audience give a physical dimension to the visual sensations.

Similarly, when tiny hovering ``mini hunter killers'' in the film appear to fly out over the audience, fans overhead blow air down on viewers' heads while the 48-speaker sound system tricks listeners' ears into thinking the machines are overhead.

The most striking technological legerdemain, however, involves the film's last few minutes.

In that climactic third act, three screens are used, wrapping completely around viewers' normal field of vision and pulling them into the action. But it also tripled, or more, the creative complications.

``We use everything in this, and everything is like six times harder because you have six projectors (two for each screen to create the 3-D look),'' Kanfer said.

That's most notable as the T-1,000,000 jumps from screen to screen as it fights with Schwarzenegger and Furlong.

``This thing runs from screen to screen, so the choreography is really hard,'' Kanfer said. ``This is the type of thing in pre-production meetings where the guy says what he wants you to do, and you look at him like, `You're dreaming.' ''

To Bruno, though, that almost willful ignorance of what was ``possible'' is what made the show great.

``We were actually approaching this in a naive way,'' Bruno said. ``We paid no attention to the rules, which is why it worked so well.''

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6 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) T2 TERMINATOR 3-D

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS POWERS UP NEW ATTRACTION

(2--Color) A robot stands ready for action at Universal Studios Hollywood's new Terminator 2 3-D attraction.

(3--Color) The human-hating T-1,000,000's tentacles go directly into the audience.

(4--Color) A new auditorium for Terminator 2 3-D is being built atop a parking structure.

(5--Color) A restored Harley-Davidson motorcycle is part of the attraction.

(6) With a May 6 opening date in mind, work continues on the 700-seat Terminator 2 3-D theater and surrounding areas.

David R. Crane/Daily News