First off thanks to all who showed up to the Animation Theater Event!
This month we've decided to have a more talkative atmosphere. Wii Night! What a better way to spend the evening then by mercilessly beating the crap out of a complete stranger on Wii boxing. Plus food! Think of it as a giant meeting minus the boring financial bits.
If you have any food or game preferences let us know! Once we book a room and date we'll send out the usual email. Keep the end of the month free!
-Alexis
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Upcomming Events
I know I said I'd send out an email by mid August but truthfully I have nothing concrete to report on. We are working on getting a room to play Electronic Theater in. We sent a request to get VAB for the 18th 19th or 20th. As soon as we have confirmation I'll send out the email.
Also I am currently in contact with DreamWorks about having an animator as a guest speaker. I hope we can get him/her to come in October so once I contract them I'll update everyone with the date of the event.
For Spring I am also working on getting a Pixar animator out here. Cross your fingers!
-Alexis
Also I am currently in contact with DreamWorks about having an animator as a guest speaker. I hope we can get him/her to come in October so once I contract them I'll update everyone with the date of the event.
For Spring I am also working on getting a Pixar animator out here. Cross your fingers!
-Alexis
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Last Day
Thursday morning was double Ratatouille presentations. The first of which was only understandable to anyone in the audience with a degree in advanced calculus. So I am not even going to bother attempting to explain the equations necessary for executing the simulations in the movie haha.
The following presentation was more our speed. It was about tailoring the clothes for human characters, hair rendering, and creating appealing characters.
The clothing on Ratatouille seemed to be created in the same way as the clothes for the Shrek films. The majority of the presentation focused on getting the chef outfit on Gusteau who had the waist size equivalent to that of the fattest man on the planet. A lot of new scripts had to be written to get him outfitted. They had been working on him for about a year when Brad Bird announced that he would be killing off his character and that he would only be a sprite now. Needless to say that pissed off a lot of teams working on him and thankfully their hard work didn't go to waste! Everyone agreed that killing him off was one of the best things Bird brought to the script.
The Rat hair was something I was looking forward to seeing. I was expecting to hear a hellish account about the man hours needed to create the fur. Needless to say the hair system on Ratatouille had been derived from Monsters Inc and perfected the year before on the Incredibles and only needed minor tweaking. Creating the wet hair was a simple as adding a specular layer. And here we thought there was some sort of Pixar magic going on. To achieve hair on the main characters all the modelers had to do was create guide hairs along the surface in the direction they wanted Remy's (or any rats) hair to go. A simple script allowed for adjusting the clumping factor and wala, instinct Rat Hair. Of course the scripting was the most difficult task to overcome but as I said, I don't know advanced calculus so you'll never see me in the technical department. (Which is actively hiring!)
Another cool tidbit about the rat fur. Rat fur was rendered depending on the motion blur and distance from camera the rat was. If a rat was in the foreground all it's 500,000 hairs were rendered. Middle ground rats were only rendered with about 1000 or so hairs and background rats were basically just a colored texture. This saved countless of dollars in render time and space. Pixar demands that scenes being rendered do not exceed 4 gigs. By reducing the hair on rats based on spatial location the render time of scenes with hundreds of rats went from 7 gigs to around 100 something mb. It goes to show that cheating truly does pay off!
Lastly was a discussion on creating appealing shapes for the characters in Rataouille. As you can see each character has it's own unique silhouette, even the rats!
The talk focused on Remy who, before Brad Bird, looked too cartoony and cute to even be considered appropriate in the realistic environments. They remade him to look more realistic, more rat like, and be able to switch from biped to quadruped.
Also Pixar used Massive for Ratatouille. You might know Massive as the software designed by WETA for all the crowd scenes in Lord of the Rings. It's been used on Narnia, Happy Feet, 300 and a bunch of other films. Here's a link to their site, Massive. For Ratatouille animators realized there was a need for Massive in order to overcome scenes with hundreds of rats. But Pixar still wanted variety in their background rats so by combining animation from their animators Pixar then plugged those movements into Massive. Instead of letting it choose at random which movements were executed Pixar turned yet again to their technical department to write addition plugins for Massive in order to control which rats executed which movements and run cycles. This gave them a control over the program that saved them the time and effort of animating each background rat individually.
After double session ended we hit up the floor again as it was closing at 3:30. So we met up with the Pixar guys again and lingered around a while after the bagpipes signalled the end of the exhibition.
There was a session later that day about water effects in Pirates, Surf's Up, and 300. But we had already seen the Surf's Up effects and due to attending so many parties we had already seen the Pirates and 300 effect presentations. So we skipped those to instead head to La Jolla for an enjoyable last evening in San Diego.
Next year Los Angeles! If your interested in attending SIGGRAPH next year but , like all college students, find yourself short on funds check out the volunteer option. We meet some students in the program who were telling us how wonderful their expirence was, especially the free copies of Maya 8.5, Cinema 4D, and Zbrush. Here's what SIGGRAPH has to say about volunteers.
Full-time students from any discipline who will be 18 years old or older at the time of the conference are encouraged to apply. Volunteers dedicate either 18 or 30 hours of service during the week of the conference. Volunteers who commit to 30 hours of service are also eligible to apply for complimentary housing in San Diego during SIGGRAPH 2007. Students who live outside of the San Diego area may also apply for a Travel Assistance Award to assist with some travel costs.
And here's a link to SIGGRAPH's 2008 volunteer page. Volunteer 2008.
Volunteer or not I hope to see some of you at SIGGRAPH L.A. next year! If not come to events for a chance to win some cool swag inculding Ratatouille posters, mini flip books and Renderman Teapots!
- Alexis
The following presentation was more our speed. It was about tailoring the clothes for human characters, hair rendering, and creating appealing characters.
The clothing on Ratatouille seemed to be created in the same way as the clothes for the Shrek films. The majority of the presentation focused on getting the chef outfit on Gusteau who had the waist size equivalent to that of the fattest man on the planet. A lot of new scripts had to be written to get him outfitted. They had been working on him for about a year when Brad Bird announced that he would be killing off his character and that he would only be a sprite now. Needless to say that pissed off a lot of teams working on him and thankfully their hard work didn't go to waste! Everyone agreed that killing him off was one of the best things Bird brought to the script.
The Rat hair was something I was looking forward to seeing. I was expecting to hear a hellish account about the man hours needed to create the fur. Needless to say the hair system on Ratatouille had been derived from Monsters Inc and perfected the year before on the Incredibles and only needed minor tweaking. Creating the wet hair was a simple as adding a specular layer. And here we thought there was some sort of Pixar magic going on. To achieve hair on the main characters all the modelers had to do was create guide hairs along the surface in the direction they wanted Remy's (or any rats) hair to go. A simple script allowed for adjusting the clumping factor and wala, instinct Rat Hair. Of course the scripting was the most difficult task to overcome but as I said, I don't know advanced calculus so you'll never see me in the technical department. (Which is actively hiring!)
Another cool tidbit about the rat fur. Rat fur was rendered depending on the motion blur and distance from camera the rat was. If a rat was in the foreground all it's 500,000 hairs were rendered. Middle ground rats were only rendered with about 1000 or so hairs and background rats were basically just a colored texture. This saved countless of dollars in render time and space. Pixar demands that scenes being rendered do not exceed 4 gigs. By reducing the hair on rats based on spatial location the render time of scenes with hundreds of rats went from 7 gigs to around 100 something mb. It goes to show that cheating truly does pay off!
Lastly was a discussion on creating appealing shapes for the characters in Rataouille. As you can see each character has it's own unique silhouette, even the rats!
The talk focused on Remy who, before Brad Bird, looked too cartoony and cute to even be considered appropriate in the realistic environments. They remade him to look more realistic, more rat like, and be able to switch from biped to quadruped.
Also Pixar used Massive for Ratatouille. You might know Massive as the software designed by WETA for all the crowd scenes in Lord of the Rings. It's been used on Narnia, Happy Feet, 300 and a bunch of other films. Here's a link to their site, Massive. For Ratatouille animators realized there was a need for Massive in order to overcome scenes with hundreds of rats. But Pixar still wanted variety in their background rats so by combining animation from their animators Pixar then plugged those movements into Massive. Instead of letting it choose at random which movements were executed Pixar turned yet again to their technical department to write addition plugins for Massive in order to control which rats executed which movements and run cycles. This gave them a control over the program that saved them the time and effort of animating each background rat individually.
After double session ended we hit up the floor again as it was closing at 3:30. So we met up with the Pixar guys again and lingered around a while after the bagpipes signalled the end of the exhibition.
There was a session later that day about water effects in Pirates, Surf's Up, and 300. But we had already seen the Surf's Up effects and due to attending so many parties we had already seen the Pirates and 300 effect presentations. So we skipped those to instead head to La Jolla for an enjoyable last evening in San Diego.
Next year Los Angeles! If your interested in attending SIGGRAPH next year but , like all college students, find yourself short on funds check out the volunteer option. We meet some students in the program who were telling us how wonderful their expirence was, especially the free copies of Maya 8.5, Cinema 4D, and Zbrush. Here's what SIGGRAPH has to say about volunteers.
Full-time students from any discipline who will be 18 years old or older at the time of the conference are encouraged to apply. Volunteers dedicate either 18 or 30 hours of service during the week of the conference. Volunteers who commit to 30 hours of service are also eligible to apply for complimentary housing in San Diego during SIGGRAPH 2007. Students who live outside of the San Diego area may also apply for a Travel Assistance Award to assist with some travel costs.
And here's a link to SIGGRAPH's 2008 volunteer page. Volunteer 2008.
Volunteer or not I hope to see some of you at SIGGRAPH L.A. next year! If not come to events for a chance to win some cool swag inculding Ratatouille posters, mini flip books and Renderman Teapots!
- Alexis
Thursday, August 9, 2007
50 Block Trek of DOOOOOM
Second to last day!
Spent the morning in a Spider-man 3 panel. They discussed the Sand Man effects, and how they rendered millions of grands of sands. Once again, we learned all about cheating to compensate for render time and costs. Yay shortcuts! Whenever there was a close-up shot of the grains, those were all modeled individually. As the camera pulled away, they developed a code that would change these models into 2-D circles. They look like this...
At first, they modeled a simple diamond in 3-D space, but the render time was so outrageous, they had to change the shape, and thus settled on these four flat circles. The rotation of each could be animated, so that depending on the light source, the highlight would be appropriate. Lastly, once the sand grain moved further back in camera space, the shape changed once again to just once circle, colored to match the surrounding lighting. Another script was written to execute that code as well. So even though it took a while to render, Sony Imageworks was able to do it in the time demanded. Always remember to cheat, cheat, cheat! And here is a link to CG Society's Spider-man 3 coverage. It explains everything above more in depth with pretty pictures and video. Spider-Man 3 CGSociety
Afterwards, we hit up the floor for a bit, and were introduced to the Pixar guys from the party. They were awesome, and I really hope we can get someone to be a guest speaker from Pixar at UCF!
Next up was a Tech Talk with Vancouver Film School, which even though it acted as a super self-promotion opportunity, they did have cool stuff to show. For anyone who doesn't know who they are, VFS is one of the top animation schools in the world. Everyone who graduates from there gets a job in the industry- most get their top choice! The professors even joke that studio recruiters can be found at their graduations running after their students. Anyway, the director of their program explained what it takes to get a career in animation and the training required. They emphasized the importance of a strong art background and understanding the fundamentals of animation. Practice, practice, practice! And don't get caught up learning where the buttons are in Maya, Cinema 4D, or any other program. Understand what the tools are for, how to use them, and the concepts behind them. Each studio has their own attachments to these programs, so it is more important to understand the functions behind the buttons then to know where the buttons are. Also, talk to as many industry people as possible- this business is all about networking and getting your foot in the door. And, especially be approachable and nice- you never know who could be sitting next to you!
The rest of the day was spent on the floor and in the Job Fair. Nickelodeon Studios is looking for interns. All that's needed to apply is your resume and cover letter. The more specific you are about what you want, the better. Here's their website: www.mtvncareers.com
Also, here's the Disney Animation internship website: www.disneyanimation.com
Big News! We heard a rumor that Disney Animation is opening their studio in Orlando again! Apparently, John Lasseter toured the old animation studio at MGM in January. When we hear more, we will let everyone know.
Nightly event included a reception outside by the water. Walked about a zillion blocks in a huge circle to get there as there was some massive server crash at the Softimage party where we were originally invited to go. But the reception was nice, gave us time to relax, and kick back before going to bed at a semi-decent hour! Until tomorrow...
- Alexis
Spent the morning in a Spider-man 3 panel. They discussed the Sand Man effects, and how they rendered millions of grands of sands. Once again, we learned all about cheating to compensate for render time and costs. Yay shortcuts! Whenever there was a close-up shot of the grains, those were all modeled individually. As the camera pulled away, they developed a code that would change these models into 2-D circles. They look like this...
At first, they modeled a simple diamond in 3-D space, but the render time was so outrageous, they had to change the shape, and thus settled on these four flat circles. The rotation of each could be animated, so that depending on the light source, the highlight would be appropriate. Lastly, once the sand grain moved further back in camera space, the shape changed once again to just once circle, colored to match the surrounding lighting. Another script was written to execute that code as well. So even though it took a while to render, Sony Imageworks was able to do it in the time demanded. Always remember to cheat, cheat, cheat! And here is a link to CG Society's Spider-man 3 coverage. It explains everything above more in depth with pretty pictures and video. Spider-Man 3 CGSociety
Afterwards, we hit up the floor for a bit, and were introduced to the Pixar guys from the party. They were awesome, and I really hope we can get someone to be a guest speaker from Pixar at UCF!
Next up was a Tech Talk with Vancouver Film School, which even though it acted as a super self-promotion opportunity, they did have cool stuff to show. For anyone who doesn't know who they are, VFS is one of the top animation schools in the world. Everyone who graduates from there gets a job in the industry- most get their top choice! The professors even joke that studio recruiters can be found at their graduations running after their students. Anyway, the director of their program explained what it takes to get a career in animation and the training required. They emphasized the importance of a strong art background and understanding the fundamentals of animation. Practice, practice, practice! And don't get caught up learning where the buttons are in Maya, Cinema 4D, or any other program. Understand what the tools are for, how to use them, and the concepts behind them. Each studio has their own attachments to these programs, so it is more important to understand the functions behind the buttons then to know where the buttons are. Also, talk to as many industry people as possible- this business is all about networking and getting your foot in the door. And, especially be approachable and nice- you never know who could be sitting next to you!
The rest of the day was spent on the floor and in the Job Fair. Nickelodeon Studios is looking for interns. All that's needed to apply is your resume and cover letter. The more specific you are about what you want, the better. Here's their website: www.mtvncareers.com
Also, here's the Disney Animation internship website: www.disneyanimation.com
Big News! We heard a rumor that Disney Animation is opening their studio in Orlando again! Apparently, John Lasseter toured the old animation studio at MGM in January. When we hear more, we will let everyone know.
Nightly event included a reception outside by the water. Walked about a zillion blocks in a huge circle to get there as there was some massive server crash at the Softimage party where we were originally invited to go. But the reception was nice, gave us time to relax, and kick back before going to bed at a semi-decent hour! Until tomorrow...
- Alexis
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Day... I have no idea?
Today started off early, as usual, with ILM's "Transformers" presentation. All we learned from that is that Michael Bay sucks and they have giant, awesome, fricken' robots. Here are some stats they threw at us about ten times during the presentation:
1) Each transformer is made up of about 1 million + polygons. 2) They have over 10,000 pieces each with an average of over 2,500 texture maps per character. That's about it for that.
Afterwards, we wandered to the Exhibition Floor, as it had opened that morning. Our first stop was the Pixar booth, as seen below.
Here we received a bunch of free swag (shhhh-wag) that was quite amazing. I've picked some stuff up for the first event that I hope to give away as prizes- you should be very excited! Speaking of Pixar, I promised to talk about the exclusive party that the three members were invited to. There were about 50 people there, and the students got to talk to all the Technical Leads in the following departments: lighting, shading, and modeling. They took away that Pixar is everything you expect it to be: professional, courteous, and fun! They were also full of information and very helpful to our members. If you want to ask them questions about their meeting just drop me an email and I'll get a reply for you.
At the next booth, Disney Animation Studios, I met with Dawn Rivera-Ernster, the director of talent development for Walt Disney Animation. When I told her about the VisuaL Language program, she was very interested and has told us that she would love to come to Orlando to speak to us about the studio and opportunities that lie there. (More swag.)
The next booth was Lucas Arts, basically, ILM. There, we talked to some more industry professionals. Hopefully, we can get some of them to come and talk to us on campus. Swag, swag, swag.
The last stop was Sony Imageworks, who have worked on such movies as the Spider-man movies, Monster House, and the upcoming Beowulf. There we spoke with Dan Lobi who remembered us from the Orlando event this spring. He showed great interest in coming back and speaking with us about the new technology and art direction in Beowulf, which utilizes performance capture. Here's a link to the Beowulf trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/
Swag galore!
At some point, we went to the Motion Capture studio, where I got to put on a motion capture suit and prance around. Check out the clip below. I look like an idiot- HOORAY!
Next up was Electronic Theater. The showcase this year was unbelievable. If you have the chance to check out "No Time for Nuts" by Blue Sky Studios- here's the link:
http://blueskystudios.com/content/shorts-notimefornuts.php
Also, if you've gone to Ratatouille, you've already seen the Pixar short film, "Lifted". If not, go see Ratatouille, because it is fabulous! My personal favorite short film we saw was by Blur Studios, typically a gaming company. Their short was entitled "A Gentleman's Duel", which you can find a trailer for here: http://www.blur.com/gentlemans_duel.html#
To see the film in its entirety, along with others, come to our first SIGGRAPH event, which will be sometime in September. We will also be giving out some swag to lucky winners!
Lastly, because I know this blog entry is the longest thing ever, I'll just mention that we attended the Adobe Maxon party that night, where we got to meet with Dave Bleich from Sony Imageworks, who was the Lead Matte Painting Supervisor. He was incredibly nice and gave us some good tips about the industry in general. Some members showed him their reels, and he also gave them positive input. Altogether, a great guy! To see his work, go check out "Surf's Up"!
More updates tomorrow, right now....I really really really need sleep.
- Alexis
1) Each transformer is made up of about 1 million + polygons. 2) They have over 10,000 pieces each with an average of over 2,500 texture maps per character. That's about it for that.
Afterwards, we wandered to the Exhibition Floor, as it had opened that morning. Our first stop was the Pixar booth, as seen below.
Here we received a bunch of free swag (shhhh-wag) that was quite amazing. I've picked some stuff up for the first event that I hope to give away as prizes- you should be very excited! Speaking of Pixar, I promised to talk about the exclusive party that the three members were invited to. There were about 50 people there, and the students got to talk to all the Technical Leads in the following departments: lighting, shading, and modeling. They took away that Pixar is everything you expect it to be: professional, courteous, and fun! They were also full of information and very helpful to our members. If you want to ask them questions about their meeting just drop me an email and I'll get a reply for you.
At the next booth, Disney Animation Studios, I met with Dawn Rivera-Ernster, the director of talent development for Walt Disney Animation. When I told her about the VisuaL Language program, she was very interested and has told us that she would love to come to Orlando to speak to us about the studio and opportunities that lie there. (More swag.)
The next booth was Lucas Arts, basically, ILM. There, we talked to some more industry professionals. Hopefully, we can get some of them to come and talk to us on campus. Swag, swag, swag.
The last stop was Sony Imageworks, who have worked on such movies as the Spider-man movies, Monster House, and the upcoming Beowulf. There we spoke with Dan Lobi who remembered us from the Orlando event this spring. He showed great interest in coming back and speaking with us about the new technology and art direction in Beowulf, which utilizes performance capture. Here's a link to the Beowulf trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/beowulf/
Swag galore!
At some point, we went to the Motion Capture studio, where I got to put on a motion capture suit and prance around. Check out the clip below. I look like an idiot- HOORAY!
Next up was Electronic Theater. The showcase this year was unbelievable. If you have the chance to check out "No Time for Nuts" by Blue Sky Studios- here's the link:
http://blueskystudios.com/content/shorts-notimefornuts.php
Also, if you've gone to Ratatouille, you've already seen the Pixar short film, "Lifted". If not, go see Ratatouille, because it is fabulous! My personal favorite short film we saw was by Blur Studios, typically a gaming company. Their short was entitled "A Gentleman's Duel", which you can find a trailer for here: http://www.blur.com/gentlemans_duel.html#
To see the film in its entirety, along with others, come to our first SIGGRAPH event, which will be sometime in September. We will also be giving out some swag to lucky winners!
Lastly, because I know this blog entry is the longest thing ever, I'll just mention that we attended the Adobe Maxon party that night, where we got to meet with Dave Bleich from Sony Imageworks, who was the Lead Matte Painting Supervisor. He was incredibly nice and gave us some good tips about the industry in general. Some members showed him their reels, and he also gave them positive input. Altogether, a great guy! To see his work, go check out "Surf's Up"!
More updates tomorrow, right now....I really really really need sleep.
- Alexis
Correction!
I plan on updating tomorrow as today was also jam packed. For now I have to make a correction. The Surf's Up course notes website is actually 185vfx.com. My crappy handwriting sucks haha.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
SIGGRAPH Conference Day 3
Good news I have found an internet version of the Ratatouille Presentation from the other day. It was titled "Anyone Can Cook" so enjoy! http://graphics.pixar.com/
Day Three here. Probably the most amazing day yet!
Woke up early to attend the Surf's Up "Making Waves" course. We learned that an actual steady cam was used to achieve the documentary style of the film. Some senors were strapped to an old 1970's camera and then connected to a computer. This allowed for the camera operator to view the Maya scene through the camera view finder. In other words imagine putting on a virtual reality helmet and looking around a room. Same thing, applied to a movie! They called it Live-Action Camera and 85% of the shots were used with this one camera. There were 60 animators split into four teams, animating everything in a sequenced-based formal versus character-based.
Also an interesting tidbit, all of the characters share the same topology, and can be morphed together, therefore having the identical UV layout. For example, the character of Cody (penguin) had the exact same amount of vertices's as Chicken Joe (chicken).
One of the most amazing things we learned is how they made the waves. They used the word "trains" to describe them. While I can't go into specifics as it is quite complicated, they did give us a website where you can flip through their concepts and art. Go to www.185vfx.com.
Later that night, we attended the Autodesk (Maya) party on a BATTLESHIP!
There we had the chance to mingle with industry professionals. Three of our members met Rick Sayre, one of the Technical Supervisors at Pixar, who you can see on any "Making of..." Pixar DVD. We recognized him, and were invited to their exclusive party! I'll have further updates for you when the party has ended!
In the meantime, feel free to check out a video shot by one of our members during the Autodesk party :0)
- Alexis
P.S. - I should have today's pictures and exhibition floor information up by tomorrow morning. Right now I need SLEEP haha.
Day Three here. Probably the most amazing day yet!
Woke up early to attend the Surf's Up "Making Waves" course. We learned that an actual steady cam was used to achieve the documentary style of the film. Some senors were strapped to an old 1970's camera and then connected to a computer. This allowed for the camera operator to view the Maya scene through the camera view finder. In other words imagine putting on a virtual reality helmet and looking around a room. Same thing, applied to a movie! They called it Live-Action Camera and 85% of the shots were used with this one camera. There were 60 animators split into four teams, animating everything in a sequenced-based formal versus character-based.
Also an interesting tidbit, all of the characters share the same topology, and can be morphed together, therefore having the identical UV layout. For example, the character of Cody (penguin) had the exact same amount of vertices's as Chicken Joe (chicken).
One of the most amazing things we learned is how they made the waves. They used the word "trains" to describe them. While I can't go into specifics as it is quite complicated, they did give us a website where you can flip through their concepts and art. Go to www.185vfx.com.
Later that night, we attended the Autodesk (Maya) party on a BATTLESHIP!
There we had the chance to mingle with industry professionals. Three of our members met Rick Sayre, one of the Technical Supervisors at Pixar, who you can see on any "Making of..." Pixar DVD. We recognized him, and were invited to their exclusive party! I'll have further updates for you when the party has ended!
In the meantime, feel free to check out a video shot by one of our members during the Autodesk party :0)
- Alexis
P.S. - I should have today's pictures and exhibition floor information up by tomorrow morning. Right now I need SLEEP haha.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)