It’s telling that so many people inspired by Ray Harryhausen are talking about the effect of ‘his films’. They are, of course, referring to his animated creatures – like ‘Mighty Joe Young’, Ymir in ’20 million miles to earth’ or the myriad beasts in ‘Jason and the Argonauts’. The films that really were ‘his’, the ones he directed, are mostly less known fairy tales. No less wonderfully animated. No less inspiring.
It’s telling that no other visual effects artist has had comparable impact and I can’t imagine any other ever doing so – at least not as an individual (Weta has been having comparable influence as a company). The novelty of animated creatures integrated in live-action that Ray filled with life has – together with the Master himself – passed away.

Thanks for your inspiration, Ray!

After rousing some decent interest in SubDiv technology and linking to modo and cgTalk, I thought I’d point to one of the trusted advantages that I use right now. I am working on a realtime project that I plan on marketing via pre-rendered films and images on webpages and youtube, etc. The use of SubDiv edge weighting (creasing) enables me to work with the same asset across all of the media I choose… just fit the level-of-detail to the medium and use the fitting normal and texture maps (not shown here). The rig, the mesh, the scene files are all the same.

Thank you, Pixar for releasing this technology open source… patents and all!

I’m a subD addict – I use them all the time. I model with them, rig low-density cages and apply displacement maps that apply on subdivision surfaces – the advantages over straight up polygons and nurbs surfaces is just stellar. Pixar has made this technology open source and aside from Autodesk, has worked with Luxology, the makers of my modeler of choice, so it’s in my hands, right? Pixar! Dudes!

Well, that’s what I thought. Like most cg artists I know, I was sure that I was profiting from this technology. Truth is… not fully.  At FMX2013, Bill Polson made a great playdoyer for why the industry as a whole will profit from subdiv technology becoming a standard. And that’s subdiv technology, not subd… respect the authors: Ed Catmull, Mark Meyer, Tony DeRose (Pixar), Charles Loop (Microsoft Research) and Matthias Niessner (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg).

The advantages over polys and nurbs are well-accepted, and AlexK wrote them up in his review, so I’ll point to the bigger deal that had escaped me… computational efficiency.

Before you tune out, my artistic friends, let me rephrase that into 1) near-realtime feedback of dense, sculpted meshes that hold up under extreme deformation and 2) consistently transfer across various applications, including games engines.

There is no 100% implementation now available that allows all this (Maya and mudbox present the closest thing right now), but the promise is there – in the form OpenSubdiv. Bill talked about the choice to use the Microsoft public license because it includes the patents behind this technology (!!!) but also causes some legal issues which are preventing the Blender foundation from full implementation. A glitch which – Bill assured us – is being addressed.

Another key word is hierarchical layering – meaning that each subdivision level that is sent to the gpu for rendering can be processed. So things like displacement can be calculated in on the GPU while the low-density base mesh is being deformed on the CPU – in iterations. The importance of this can be summed up as efficient level-of-detail processing. For further technical advantages, I point you to this autodesk video highlighting their cooperation.

I’d like to sum the advantages from the POV of us artists, because we need to be vocal about getting this implemented across the board… from CAD software to games to film and vfx software. A world of play-nice toolsets and immediate artistic feedback that you can trust to hold up across pipelines is just too necessary.

1) model clean, lean meshes that subdivide according to defined creasing values (or edge-weighting) and send these meshes from one tool to another with consistent results (go to 26:50 in the video above)
2) get rapid feedback of detailed surface displacement not only while sculpting, but while animating and and lighting
3) manage large scenes efficiently via level-of-detail controls that optimize hardware usage. This applies to distance-from-camera controls as well as to localized displacement effects such as Merida’s horse Angus plodding through snow.
4) know that your work is compatible with further feature sets like ptex texturing

SubDivs? You know you want ‘em!

Modo has become my software of choice for pretty much everything but animating. With the new ACS kit from Lukazs Pazera this might be changing. Here’s a 3-day test run, from rigging and weighting through to animating. The curves are ugly – still have to get my brain around modo’s system there, but the kit makes the whole process amazingly smooth. Never would be able to do this so quickly without it.

If your see facebook and google accounts are anything like mine, this has become the dominating color. If not, know that its the color of green screens used to mask out elements of  footage, making it disappear from the final film – and now the color of protest against the Oscar event’s screening out even the mention of very needed and timely critique. The artists who make vfx films what they are, are themselves being all too often cut out of the picture. And finally, the situation has seems to have reached a breaking point.

Whipped this out this morning… very rough. The paddle stroke, as I call it. needs work.

Well, there you have it. The next knife blade wrenched in the gut of cinematic experience. Researchers say … 54.8% of the viewers reported some sickness after the stereoscopic movie, compared with 14.1% after watching a ‘flat’ movie. How is the movie industry going to justify ticket prices of 15 Euros now!?!?

In the future, I’m going to refer anyone interested in animation to this video lesson by the great Glen Keane. It’s a half-hour walk through as he animates a the single jump of a dancer which, when played back, will take all of a second. He reveals his thought processes along the way, discussing why he does this, why not that. I’ll also refer anyone asking about life in general to this video, because he seems to know the secret to making adequate yet forgettable moments become something you wish to relive, to savor. It’s what makes animation animated. Great stuff

It’s something about the fun of holding back the punchline. It’s knowing that I want to get to here, and I’ve got to earn that.

The vfx industry is perverse. It provides the backbone visuals powering the top box office hits, yet its artists are named – if at all – at the very end of the credit roll. Its production houses are continuously expected to deliver more, better, faster… for less money, and competing houses always seem to be circling, waiting for an opportunity. As a work-for-hire artist you can earn very well, at the cost of health issues such as burnout and other stress-related issues. It’s a perverse industry fitting of the crash-and-burn economy our society currently seems worthy of emulating.

Still, it’s sad that a company like Rhythm & Hues, on the coattails of an Oscar-winning performance, has to declare bankruptcy.

Artists are often the most intent observers of natural phenomena, and so it’s little surprise that the work behind digital characters such as Gollum or Gandalf’s horse is as intense as scientific research and indeed, relies heavily on the science. The latest fxguide podcast features Simon Clutterbuck and James Jacobs and gives a fairly potent glimpse into said intensity. The toolsets for simulating muscle, sinews, skin and fat are approaching a detail that must make scientists listen up and think “how can I get my hands on that?” Click the ape to listen in on a very interesting podcast.

Tyrannosaurus news roams the analogue landscape before meeting its modern, digital demise. Kooky cliche, but kinda neat anyway.

Congratulations, guys!

https://vimeo.com/48379219
Monstro supports a good cause with good animation. Worth watching!

Back in the film days before digital tools we were more connected to the process … the more digital tools became prevalent, studios became more compartmentalized. I always tried to stay in touch with my work.

SO important! Seems very obvious yet this is the most influential element of artistic workflows… they allow hands-on manipulation of the big picture.

Fantastic, fun presentation and beautiful concept. I’m blown away at the way kickstarter and co are changing the landscape of financing and distribution, turning grass-roots momentum into a business.