Lifesaving Design to the I-MAX A+ Animations

Contents Zoom In Zoom Out For navigation instructions please click here Search Issue Next Page ComputerTHE MAGAZINE FOR DIGITAL CONTENT CREATION AND PRODUCTION January 2007 www.cgw.com WORLD

Lifesaving Design Specialists use CAD tools to develop a device for the heart

To the I-MAX CG films get depth and grow large in stereo 3D

A+ Animations Students get high marks for their animated shorts Funny Bones A digital T. rex exhibits puppy-like behaviors amid chaos as museum displays come alive

$4.95 USA $6.50 Canada

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Karen Moltenbrey Chief Editor note

KAREN MOLTENBREY: Chief Editor A Good Year for CG [email protected] 36 East Nashua Road Windham, NH 03087 (603) 432-7568 By now, you should have unwrapped and, hopefully, put to good use all those holiday gifts you received. Be honest, you probably even returned one CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Courtney Howard, Jenny Donelan, or two things. In terms of apparel, perhaps you were unhappy with the color, Audrey Doyle, Evan Marc Hirsch, George Maestri, Martin McEachern, editor’s ﬁ t, or the item itself; but if the present fell into the category of electronics, you Stephen Porter, Barbara Robertson may have traded up for a newer, more advanced version. In fact, today’s most advanced electronics—both consumer- and professional-level— KATH CUNNINGHAM: Production Director [email protected] seem to become outdated soon after they hit store shelves. While this can be frustrat- (818) 291-1113

ing for buyers, particularly those in the digital content creation realm, it is a signal that CHRIS SALCIDO: Account Representative innovation is occurring. And that, obviously, is a very good thing. [email protected] (818) 291-1144 2006 turned out to be a year of many changes within the computer graphics industry. At the beginning, Creative Labs cut loose graphics card maker 3Dlabs, leaving ATI and COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD Editorial Offi ce: Nvidia to battle it out for the top position in the market. Throughout the year, ATI and 620 West Elk Avenue Nvidia worked hard to gain ground. Nvidia was very busy, rolling out solutions for desktop, Glendale, CA 91204 (800) 280-6446, x1105 professional, gaming, and mobile users. Early work on Intel’s Napa design, successor to the Centrino line, made Nvidia the top GPU choice for that platform. Perhaps Nvidia’s biggest SALES announcement came during SIGGRAPH, when it unveiled the Quadro Plex visual comput- TIM MATTESON: Publisher/West Coast Sales [email protected] ing system for advanced visualization. The company ended the year by announcing its (310) 836-4064 Cuda technology. And you can bet that Nvidia will not rest on its laurels during 2007. LA Sales Offi ce: ATI likewise remained busy in those markets with new prod- 620 West Elk Avenue 2006 turned out uct launches. Still, ATI’s biggest move in 2006 occurred when Glendale, CA 91204 to be a year of the company landed in the hands of AMD. In fact, the analysts (800) 280-6446 at Jon Peddie Research rated the acquisition as one of the top many changes and fi ve industry events of last year. AMD, in fact, made that list innovations within twice, the second selection due to Dell’s announcement that it the computer will adopt AMD Opteron processors for its desktop and server graphics industry. lines. Like AMD, Intel also had a good year, particularly after Apple’s switch from PowerPC to Intel processors. WILLIAM R. RITTWAGE President and Chief Executive Offi cer One of the biggest events last year was the rollout of quad-core technology. No matter if those four CPU cores are from Intel or AMD, the offering will no doubt have a tremendous Computer Graphics World Magazine is published by Computer Graphics World, a impact across all areas of the graphics industry. Looking ahead, the graphics suppliers will COP Communications company. continue to shake up the industry—we can expect Nvidia to make lots of noise with its G80 Computer Graphics World does not verify any claims or other information appearing in any of the advertisements GPU, and ATI to do likewise with the R600. contained in the publication, and cannot take any In the gaming market, gamers are now buying their Alienware systems from Dell, responsibility for any losses or other damages incurred by readers in reliance on such content. following the acquisition earlier last year. Also, in late-2006, the Nintendo Wii and Computer Graphics World cannot be held responsible for Sony PlayStation 3 joined the next-gen gaming revolution started by Microsoft the prior the safekeeping or return of unsolicited articles, manuscripts, photographs, illustrations or other materials. year with its Xbox 360—and the look and feel of real-time game graphics are inching Address all subscription correspondence to: Computer closer to that of pre-rendered fi lm imagery. And with the PS3’s inclusion of a Blue-ray Graphics World, P.O. Box 3296, Northbrook, IL 60065-3296. Subscriptions are available free to qualifi ed individuals DVD player, we can expect the race between Blue-ray and HD-DVD to really heat up within the United States. Non-qualifi ed subscription rates: USA—$55 for 1 year, $90 for 2 years; Canadian the video market this year. subscriptions —$75 for 1 year and $104 for 2 years; These are but a few of the big events that have, and will, shape the DCC industry. all other countries—$115 for 1 year and $160 for 2 years. Digital subscriptions are available for $27 per year. Which events would you rate as having the most impact on the graphics industry? Subscribers can also contact customer service by calling 847-559-7310 or sending an email to [email protected]. Share your thoughts and opinions on this subject as well as others via the Computer Change of address can be made online at http://www. Graphics World CG Forum blog (www.cgw.com). In fact, make blogging on CGW part omeda.com/cgw/ and click on customer service assistance.

of your New Year’s resolution. Postmaster: Send Address Changes to Computer Graphics World, P.O. Box 3296, Here’s wishing everyone in the graphics industry a very prosperous 2007! Northbrook, IL 60065-3296

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January 2007 • Volume 30 • Number 1 THE MAGAZINE FOR DIGITAL CONTENT CREATION AND PRODUCTION

Also see www.cgw.com for computer graphics news, Computer special surveys and reports, and the online gallery. WORLD

Features

Cover story Night Vision 14 VISUAL EFFECTS | Rhythm & Hues wrangles a range of CG animals, 14 including a skeletal T. rex, while Rainmaker handles a pair of Egyptian Departments jackals and The Orphanage makes Editor’s Note 1 a giant stone statue talk, as A Good Year for CG museum displays come alive in 2006 brought a great deal of a VFX-adorned comedy. innovation in the computer graphics By Barbara Robertson industry, particularly in the form of processing power, thanks to efforts 20 A Design with Heart 20 from the chip and card makers. MEDICAL VIZ • CAD | Medical design Spotlight 4 teams use CAD tools running in a powerful Nvidia-based environment Products to develop a device that makes heart NEC Widens MultiSync 90 Series surgery safer and less invasive. Nvidia Rolls Out Quadro FX 3500M Mobile Machines By Jenny Donelan Autodesk Toxik Extension 1 Released Autodesk Announces AliasStudio 13.5 Supersized 24 Nvidia Presents Drivers for Autodesk STEREOSCOPY | CG-animated features Applications are getting larger as they make their User Focus way to IMAX 3D theaters. Dancing Lessons By Debra Kaufman Independent game developer FreeStyleGames used mocap and 24 Dinosaur Dynamics 30 an integrated 3ds Max/MotionBuilder pipeline to create a unique MODELING • ANIMATION | In a time- break-dancing title. warping display of CG, artists create Millennial Effects realistic 3D dinosaurs and integrate Look Effects generates a number of them into a live, modern-day setting. subtle VFX, including set extensions, for the sci-ﬁ movie The Fountain. By Karen Moltenbrey Viewpoint: Modeling 12 Lessons in Filmmaking 34 The Photoshop Healing Brush STUDENT ANIMATIONS | Budding CG directors/animators make the grade Portfolio 40 with these highlighted 3D short ﬁ lms. Greg Vilk

By Jenny Donelan Products 42 30

On the cover: Rhythm & Hues created this playful dino skeleton, one of many exhibits that the studio brings to life in the comedy Night at the Museum. Pg. 14.

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MONITOR GRAPHICS CARDS NEC Widens Nvidia Rolls MultiSync 90 Series Out Quadro PRODUCTS NEC Display Solutions of America, stand-alone provider PRODUCTS FX 3500M for of fl at-panel desktop and large-screen displays, rolled out new 24- and 26-inch wide LCD displays—the MultiSync Mobile Machines LCD2490WUXi and LCD2690WUXi wide-screen monitors, respectively—as part of its MultiSync 90 I Series. With this Nvidia announced the Quadro FX 3500M, a release, NEC extended its 90 Series with what appears to be high-performing mobile workstation graph- the fi rst 26-inch wide-screen offering in the marketplace. ics solution geared for the CAD, DCC, and scientifi c visualization markets. Engineered to deliver performance for accelerated workfl ow and shortened design cycles, the Quadro FX 3500M with support for OpenGL and DirectX offers up to 512MB G-DDR3 memory, a 256-bit memory interface, up to 38.4GB/sec memory bandwidth, and up to 2GB/sec pixel read-back. The solution also includes adaptive power management tools for performance scalability and visualization of extensive datasets with extremely high image quality. The Quadro FX 3500M is available now as an option on Dell Precision M90 mobile The displays, which are positioned within workstation systems. Pricing is dependent on the company’s professional line, are SpectraView II- and system confi guration. GammaComp MD-compatible, and sport HDCP (High- Bandwidth Digital-Content Protection) for the retention of the content’s integrity when transmitted in an encrypted format. The products also support X-Light Pro, a new feature that keeps the backlight at a constant brightness level, and offer 1920x1200 native resolution. Poised to address the demanding medical, graphics, pre- production fi lm, fi nancial, gaming, and broadcast industries, the new displays use in-plane switching (IPS) module technology. IPS-based modules are high-performing LCD technology that deliver unparalleled color reproduction and brightness uniformity by minimizing off-angle color shift and by producing clearer black tones in dark-colored images. The displays are available now and cost $1499 for the MultiSync LCD2490WUXi and $1699 for the LCD2690WUXi.

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COMPOSITING Autodesk Toxik Extension 1 Released Autodesk has unveiled the ﬁ rst creative Image Science Group. tools extension for use with its Autodesk This ﬁ rst Toxik extension

PRODUCTS Toxik 2007 software. also includes Lens Distort, with For the creation of feature-ﬁ lm visu- which artists can remove, adjust, al effects, Toxik provides users with 2D or apply lens distortion. The new and 3D compositing tools, built-in col- add-on offers Comparison, a fea- laboration, and the ability to manipulate ture borrowed from the Autodesk high dynamic range imagery (HDRI). Flame visual effects system that Although Toxik 2007 includes a 3D enables users to juxtapose imag- Transform tool, Toxik Extension 1 adds es and compare the results with a 2D Transform utility that enables users reference frames or other nodes to move, scale, and rotate an image while in a composition. maintaining high accuracy and quali- Autodesk Toxik 2007 Extension 1 is A single seat of Autodesk Toxik 2007 is ty. This new feature is based on ﬁ lter- available to Autodesk subscription hold- priced at $6500, whereas the optional ing techniques developed by Autodesk’s ers via download from the Toxik portal. subscription is offered at $1200.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN CARD DRIVERS Autodesk Announces Nvidia Presents AliasStudio 13.5 Drivers for Autodesk

PRODUCTS Autodesk has upgraded AliasStudio, its industrial design PRODUCTS Applications software, to Version 13.5. Autodesk AliasStudio supports Nvidia has announced the availability of Nvidia the industrial design workfl ow, from initial sketches to MAXtreme 9 Direct3D (D3D) and PowerDraft 2007 per- concept visualization to production modeling. Version formance drivers for its Quadro FX graphics boards. 13.5 is designed to improve the overall design workfl ow The new drivers were developed in collaboration with process and increase performance and productivity. Autodesk for use with the company’s 3ds Max 9 and The latest edition includes updates to Autodesk AutoCAD 2007 software programs. DirectConnect, which enhances the exchange of data The MAXtreme 9 D3D performance driver enables with comput- 3ds Max 9 users to er- aided design boost productivity by solutions. controlling the appli- Autodesk has cation’s viewport dis- also upgrad- play quality and real- ed AliasStudio time rendering speed. software with MAXtreme 9 D3D faster respon- works with all Nvidia siveness, par- Quadro FX solu- ticularly when tions and Microsoft working with Windows 2000 and XP large data sets; enhanced sketching, modeling, and operating systems. The visualization tools; and a modifi ed user interface for PowerDraft 2007 driver for a more streamlined, productive workfl ow. Further, a AutoCAD 2007 accelerates the performance of Quadro FX more robust Initial Graphics Exchange Specifi cation hardware running under Windows 2000 and XP. (IGES) translator and new DWG/DXF translator ease the The Nvidia MAXtreme 9 and PowerDraft 2007 driv- importation of fi les from AutoCAD. ers are available for free download from Nvidia’s Web Autodesk AliasStudio 13.5 is now available. site at www.nvidia.com.

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GAMING Dance Lessons

Computer gaming is no longer limited to shooters, puzzles, and sports themes.

USER FOCUS Recently, a handful of game develop- ers, such as FreeStyleGames, an independent studio in the UK, have side- stepped these tried-and-true genres, moving instead to a different beat by offering dance-style titles, which are becoming increasingly popular, especially among the teenage crowd. FreeStyleGames recently rolled out its fi rst title, B-Boy, a unique competi- tive break-dancing game that allows the player to move (and groove) through authentic hip-hop dance culture using a controller instead of performing on a dance mat. Partnering A unique dance-style video game from independent developer FreeStyleGames lets with Sony Computer Entertainment players break-dance their way through the title, earning points for their efforts. Europe, FreeStyleGames tapped real- world break-dancing champions from Europe, Asia, and North Dance Team America, and used a tool set comprising Autodesk’s 3ds Max Even though this title was FreeStyleGames’ fi rst step into and MotionBuilder, to put the player in the shoes of the world’s the market, the group was able to complete the game in just best B-Boys performing in real-world dance battles. over two years. With a relatively tight team of 35 people, In the game, the player falls into the role of a B-Boy, or and more than 5500 individual animation assets, complet- break-dance artist and hip-hop music enthusiast. Initially, ing this project was no small feat. the B-Boy starts out with a few dance moves and, as the “The great thing about a 3ds Max and MotionBuilder game progresses, gains additional moves to ultimately bat- pipeline is that in addition to being so easy to use, the work- tle it out for a coveted Adidas sponsorship. The title also fl ow capabilities between the two made creating the game includes an arcade, or jam, mode that allows multiple play- even easier,” says director Jamie Jackson. “We were able to ers to compete against one another via WiFi. work effi ciently and keep the size of our production teams to

The developer motion-captured performers using a Vicon MX40 setup at Audiomotion. Later, the artists used a combination pipeline integrating 3ds Max (left) and MotionBuilder (right) to achieve believable, ﬂ uid movements that they applied to the characters.

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a minimum while delivering a quality title.” The team used custom scripts in 3ds Max (MAXscripting) to help export the huge number of character assets. With multiple levels of detail including hands, body, head, clothing, shoes, eyeballs, hats and hair, the export process would have been nearly impossible if it hadn’t been automated. With a custom MAXscript, however, the assets were automatically exported in sequence to specifi c directories, further sim- plifying the workfl ow. Building custom tools in 3ds Max also allowed FreeStyleGames to apply skeletal, skin, and texture data to several characters, and then tweak them as needed to simplify the creation of multiple characters and crowds. The team also employed 3ds Max character-building In the game, players practice and perfect their dance skills using movements tools such as Skinwrap to transfer weights, and Morpher acquired from real-life B-Boy performers. to simplify the application of facial animation. motion-capture shoot and identifi ed a list of movements that would The artists at FreeStyleGames built all of the game models, be captured, along with in-between motions to link those move- from the characters to the game-level environments, using 3ds ments together. The Audiomotion crew, meanwhile, acquired the Max. All the in-game and cinematic animation was created using mocap data using a Vicon MX40 system at its facility. MotionBuilder. In order to retain authenticity, the characters were Various B-Boy performers were captured; the data was created to emulate real-world B-Boys, such as the championship’s cleaned up, reconstructed, and processed, and then brought host, DJ Hooch, and break-dancing icon Crazy Legs. into MotionBuilder as optical data. Once in MotionBuilder, the The game employs an artful, stylistic look with highly accu- FreeStyleGames team was able to plot that data onto an actor via rate character animation, thanks in part to a combination of Vicon optical nodes, which were then used to drive the CG character. motion-capture and MotionBuilder tool sets. FreeStyleGames The motion-capture data was further refi ned in MotionBuilder employed the services of Oxfordshire, UK-based Audiomotion so that all loops and transitions occur seamlessly. All of the for capturing and processing the motion-capture data of break fi nal animations were exported for game use via 3ds Max. dancers that was later applied to the game’s digital characters. The FreeStyleGames animation team also came up with a FreeStyleGames’ lead designer, Gareth Glover, directed the unique solution to creating characters: roll bones on the upper arm and forearm that enabled the mesh to deform in a way that would eliminate shoulder/arm collapse. This method involved using an import skeleton, export skeleton, and subset of bones. A big challenge for the team was breaking down the animation to make each individual dance move. “We started by building each move and then the transitions to and from each one of them. The Motion Blend feature in MotionBuilder helped us create a smooth, fl uid transition between each movement,” says lead animator Simon Papp. B-Boy, which has already been hailed “The Coolest Game of the Year” by Offi cial Playstation Magazine, has also garnered awards at the 2006 E3 show for Best Music Game and Most Innovative Game. Released this past October, the game is available on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Meanwhile, FreeStyleGames is also With anti-roll bones (red), the upper arm bone follows the x-axis releasing an audio CD titled Music from B-Boy, featuring licensed rotation of the clavicle, so the geometry doesn’t collapse. funk and hip-hop classics from the game.

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A CW Previous Page Contents Zoom In Zoom Out Front Cover Search Issue Next Page BEF MaGS C C spotlight 10 USER FOCUS | W W ComputerGraphics World 16th-century Spain, where conquistador Tomas conquistador where Spain, 16th-century Aronofsky called upon Look Effects, which was was which Effects, Look upon called Aronofsky Warner Bros.’Warner live-action/science-fi The Fountain The Tom begins to grasp the mysteries that have con- have that mysteries the tograsp Tom begins (Hugh Jackman) commences his search for the forthe search his commences Jackman) (Hugh Millennial Effects POSTPRODUCTION for the cancer that is k is that cancer for the face replacements and blemish removals, and Flame, Apple’s Shake, and Adobe’s Photoshop. and Apple’s Shake, Flame, achieving his artistic vision without the overuse overuse the without vision artistic his achieving animated reveals of certain key elements in in elements key ofcertain reveals animated man struggles to save the woman heloves. woman tosave the struggles man mattes and rotoscoped the foreground elements as needed, needed, as elements foreground the rotoscoped and mattes means for toning down the use of CG through the the through of CG use the down fortoning means legendary Fountain of Youth. As modern-day sci- ofYouth. modern-day As Fountain legendary life as a central character in the fi the in character acentral as life his intent to greatly minimize the use ofcom- use the minimize togreatly intent his rebirth during a 1000-year time frame, as one as frame, time a1000-year during rebirth research and development into the most effective effective most the into development and research imagery provided by the production group, as well as some some as well as group, production the by provided imagery high-resolution used Effects atLook artists the instance, brought aboard the project while it was still in in still itwas while project the aboard brought through deep space as a 26th-century astronaut, astronaut, a26th-century as space deep through tor is not particularly fond of. As part of the initial initial the of part As of. fond particularly not is tor mis- studio’s The ofdevelopment. stages early the the fi puter graphics,” says Henrik Fett, visual effects effects visual Fett, Henrik says graphics,” puter entist Tommy Creo, he struggles tofi Tommy hestruggles Creo, entist of computer graphics—technology that the direc- the that graphics—technology of computer and love, death, oflife, themes the explores creation of practical yet stunning visual effects. visual stunning yet ofpractical creation sumed him in his epic journey through time. through journey epic his in him sumed sions with huge vista shots of Mayan countries, countries, ofMayan shots vista huge with sions fi onthe shots defi director the tohelp was sion stock images, to craft a digital landscape. They also pulled pulled also They landscape. adigital tocraft images, stock supervisor onsupervisor during the span of a millennium, beginning in in beginning ofamillennium, span the during digital matte paintings, image enhancements, enhancements, image paintings, matte digital extensive conducted Effects Look team, design done using a combination of tools, including Autodesk’s including oftools, acombination done using “Aronosfsky was clear on what he wanted and and hewanted onwhat clear was “Aronosfsky To help re-create these diverse settings, settings, diverse these To re-create help The movie stretches across three time periods periods time three across stretches movie The To this end, the studio completed nearly 90 To create the high plateau of the Mayan landscape, for landscape, Mayan ofthe plateau high To the create lm, such as bringing an inanimate tree to rvosPage Previous rvosPage Previous , directed by Darren Aronofsky, The Fountain The lm, including major set exten- set major including lm, illing his wife. Traveling . JANUARY 2007 ne parameters for ne parameters Contents Contents lm. This was was This lm. cin fi ction nd a cure omIn Zoom omIn Zoom lm www.cgw.com ______set extensions, andmore, whileothershotswere more obvious. Most oftheworkwassubtleandincludedfacereplacement/blemish work, VFX facilityLookEffectscreated arange ofeffectsforthefi omOut Zoom omOut Zoom “This allowed the director to push the scope of the land- ofthe scope the topush director the allowed “This and composited the matte painting into the background. background. the into painting matte the composited and to unfold his story across three diverse periods. periods. diverse three across story to his unfold able was director the aresult, set,” As hesays. ofthe tations of the digital imagery into the physical production footage. footage. production physical the into imagery digital of the scape and vista shots, and move beyond the physical limi- physical the move beyond and shots, vista and scape All of the work, notes Fett, required seamless integration integration seamless required Fett, notes work, ofthe All rn Cover Front rn Cover Front erhIssue Search erhIssue Search lm etPage Next etPage Next The Fountain A A B B . 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Idea: Assemble the ultimate team to create a John Woo sequel that you can play.

Realized: The line between video game and fi lm is officially blurred. When faced with the challenge of creating a video game sequel worthy of John Woo’s movie “Hard Boiled,” the team at Midway chose to use Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk Maya® and Autodesk MotionBuilder™. Using this 3D arsenal, artists are able to create graphically stunning characters, backgrounds and animations with amazing production efficiency. Get the full story on this next-generation masterpiece at autodesk.com/stranglehold

Stranglehold © 2006 Midway Amusement Games, LLC. All rights reserved. Stranglehold, MIDWAY, and the Midway logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Midway Amusement Games, LLC. Autodesk, 3ds Max, Maya and MotionBuilder are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and speciﬁcations at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2006 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

A CW Previous Page Contents Zoom In Zoom Out Front Cover Search Issue Next Page BEF MaGS C C Dave Story research teams. number ofthecompany’s As such, heoverseesa Digital Imagingdivision. development for Adobe’s president ofproduct tage ofit. take advan- are readyto and ifyou recognize it if you everywhere, comes from Innovation a long way over the years, there has has there years, way the over a long 12 Photoshop to solve new imaging prob- imaging Photoshop tosolve new never been more we can do to enable dotoenable we more can been never lems than there is today. After all, mul- all, today. is After there than lems tiple domains are converging: image image converging: are domains tiple | W W ComputerGraphics World is vice features?” While we’ve come While features?” keep coming up with new new upwith coming keep ing with Photoshop users, and and Photoshop users, with ing

view doyou “How meis, ask edly repeat- users that one question point I travel around Modeling And as a result, there is is there aresult, as And you are ready to take totake ready you are if itand you recognize vision, 2D and 3D, and 2D and vision, fl around the world that that world the around amazing research hap- and shading of sampled ofsampled shading and imper- tocorrect ability advantage of it. Take ofit. advantage Brush gives users the the users gives Brush suc- overnight an Brush, from everywhere, if if everywhere, from push that features feeds fections, causing the the causing fections, It matches the texture, texture, the It matches Photoshop Healing healed. As a result, the the aresult, As healed. lighting, transparency, repaired pixels blend blend pixels repaired boundaries. the surrounding image. image. surrounding the ofthe example the pening at Adobe and all all and atAdobe pening pixels to the pixels being being pixels tothe pixels processing and computer computer and processing develop. The Healing Healing develop. The to years took that cess of the image. of the still and video imaging. imaging. video and still seamlessly into the rest rest intothe seamlessly aws to disappear into into aws todisappear Innovation comes comes Innovation rvosPage Previous rvosPage Previous The PhotoshopHealingBrush the world talk- world the JANUARY 2007 Contents Contents Adobe Photoshop,Adobe fi A Culture of Innovation Innovation of A Culture fi a program to display grayscale images when our development machines had only only had machines development our when images grayscale todisplay a program to therightshowsco-variantcloning(Adobe’s HealingBrushtechnology). to therightisaclose-upofthatregion. Lowerleftshowsresults usingLaplacecloning, and Top leftshowsaportionofanimage(highlightedinred box) thatneedstoberestored; fuses through the metal until it reaches a steady state. But what does heat diffusion diffusion heat does what But state. asteady itreaches until metal the through fuses Photoshop. We rely on partnerships with universities and other groups doing basic basic doing groups other and universities with Photoshop. We onpartnerships rely Physics 101 lecture: When you place a piece of metal on a heated surface, heat dif- heat surface, onaheated ofmetal apiece you place When 101Physics lecture: have to do with pixel restoration? More than you might think. think. you might than More restoration? pixel have todowith research, and we also do research within the product team. product the within doresearch we also and research, of versions shipping in features new into directly totranslate we endeavor research balance forabetter we strive days, ofhonor. These abadge tobe used it, all-nighters between work and life, and innovation comes from less-caffeinated sources. less-caffeinated from comes innovation and life, work and between tobecome evolved ithas 16 years, past the Over monitors. bitmap black-and-white the industry standard for image editing, delivering a long sequence of innovation ofinnovation sequence along delivering editing, forimage standard industry the deprivation. As my colleague Marc Pawliger, senior director of engineering, explains explains ofengineering, director senior Pawliger, Marc mycolleague As deprivation. do things they never thought possible. rsts to the desktop world and enabling creative professionals and scientists alike to alike scientists and professionals creative enabling and world desktop tothe rsts Adobe has internal groups such as Adobe Labs that engage in applied research, research, applied in engage that Labs Adobe as such groups internal has Adobe Which brings us back to heat diffusion. toheat back us brings Which The inspiration for the Healing Brush came from something you might hear in a in hear you might something from came Brush Healing forthe inspiration The In the early days of Photoshop, innovation was the product of caffeine and sleep sleep and ofcaffeine product the was ofPhotoshop, innovation days early the In omIn Zoom omIn Zoom ______www.cgw.com rst released in 1990, was ahead of its time. It was conceived as as conceived Itwas time. ofits 1990, ahead was in released rst omOut Zoom omOut Zoom rn Cover Front rn Cover Front erhIssue Search erhIssue Search By DaveStory etPage Next etPage Next A A B B E E F F M M a a G G S S A CW Previous Page Contents Zoom In Zoom Out Front Cover Search Issue Next Page BEF MaGS

Making of the Healing Brush and the type of restoration is referred While most people were at home celebrating the holidays in December 1999, a hand- to as Poisson image editing. With the ful of Photoshop computer scientists were busy grappling with the question of how to help of Photoshop computer scientist repair cracks, gaps, and scratches in an image using information from surrounding Jeff Chien, who did the challenging and pixels. One of those computer scientists was Todor Georgiev. Georgiev thought about essential work of turning Georgiev’s how heat diffuses across a surface. He reasoned that if pixels could “diffuse” in a research into actual code, the Healing similar way, cracks and scratches in an image could be fi lled in using the character- Brush shipped as a major feature in istics of surrounding pixels. Photoshop 7.0 in 2002. A partial differential equation known as the Laplace equation describes the state of equilibrium that is reached in heat diffusion as well as in other physical applica- Looking Forward tions related to electromagnetism and fl uid dynamics. The way to solve the equation The digital imaging realm is changing is to perform iterations that eventually converge on a solution. faster than ever. We have to constantly But there was a problem. At the time, Photoshop provided full internal support for look ahead and develop for the world 8-bit images only (it now supports up to 32-bit-per-color images). But 8-bit processing as it will be, rather than how it is today. proved too limited, and the equation wouldn’t converge. Finer iterations were needed. To remain nimble and able to adapt to A co-worker of Georgiev’s, Mark Hamburg, built a special 16-bit environment so the newest algorithms, Adobe spends research could continue. approximately 20 percent of its resources Georgiev faced another challenge, this time of the mathematical sort. The Laplace every product cycle refactoring the equation wasn’t giving him the results he had hoped for. Even worse, the math Photoshop code. And to stay abreast of textbooks lining his bookshelf suggested that a solution whereby the edges of the the latest research, we spend time and “healed” area would be perfectly smooth was impossible. Georgiev discovered the resources collaborating with Adobe Labs answer was to go to higher-order differential equations: The higher the order (up to a and outside researchers on new ideas, point), the better the results. some of them a lot crazier than heat dif- Progress was being made, but the results weren’t perfect enough for Photoshop. fusion and healing scratches. Using Georgiev’s method, the healed area of an image appeared overly smooth because For the Photoshop family of products, it failed to accurately represent the texture of the surrounding pixels. The smoothness the possible areas of research far out- made the cloned area look blurry. At this point, the Healing Brush feature had been pace the number of resources we have added to the list of features committed for Photoshop 7.0. But Georgiev still needed a to do that research and to convert it into way to perfect the technology, and with deadlines looming, he was under the gun. shipping features. To focus our work, the Photoshop team listens carefully to cus- Inspiration from Einstein tomers. Their challenges have led us to When we look at an image, we don’t perceive pixel attributes, such as brightness, a set of “holy grails,” achievements that for what they are. Our visual system interprets the image through a process called would create real breakthroughs for our “adaptation.” For example, if you look at a gray band that has a constant pixel value customers. We hope to solve all of them, but is surrounded by a variable background, it appears to vary in lightness, in oppo- but if we can solve even a few of them, sition to its surroundings. The variance we perceive is the result of visual adaptation. we think we’ll again revolutionize how Georgiev realized that his restoration method needed to employ the mechanism artists interact with digital images. of visual adaptation. And for that, he turned to Albert Einstein. It turns out that the math that describes visual adaptation is the same as the math that describes move- David Story, vice president of product ment in gravitational fi elds. This math has its roots in Einstein’s general theory of development for Digital Imaging at Adobe relativity, and more specifi cally, Einstein and Marcel Grossman’s theory of co-variant Systems, is responsible for the delivery derivatives. Another area where co-variant derivatives have been used, in a manner of Adobe’s Digital Imaging product fam- similar to the Healing Brush, is Hermann Weyl’s theory of electromagnetic interac- ily, which includes Photoshop, Photoshop tions, which led to today’s gauge theories of all fundamental forces in physics. Elements, Photoshop Album, Photoshop At each point in an image, there exist an infi nite number of different rules for Album SE, Adobe Photoshop Services, calculating perceived changes in pixel value—known mathematically as co-vari- Adobe Camera Raw, and Photoshop ant derivatives (or connections). Georgiev theorized that by expressing the origi- Lightroom. He oversees several research nal differential equation in terms of co-variant derivatives, generated from a sec- teams in areas related to the future of ond “neutral” area in the image, he could produce the desired result. The method digital imaging and software develop- would clone not the pixels themselves, but their structure and texture. His theory ment methodologies. Story’s teams at worked perfectly. Adobe have fi led numerous patents and The equation Georgiev developed is usually approximated by Poisson’s equation, have won several awards for innovation.

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. . . . Visual Effects Night Vision

Rhythm & Hues and other visual effects

studios bring museum exhibits to life

using CG tools and techniques

By Barbara Robertson

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Visual Effects. . . .

The premise is simple: At night, want to enhance the chaotic feeling of the they came alive, Rygiel and the director everything in the Museum of Natural sequences by adding more CG animals wanted them to be believable. The effects History comes alive—the skeletal T. rex, later. “We had Shawn [Levy] shoot the crew needed to convince the audience the animals in the African pavilion, scenes so that we could add the CG ani- that the security guard would think these Egyptian gods, and, in the dioramas, tiny mals or not,” Rygiel says. are real animals, not lifelike “stuffi es.” Roman centurions, Civil War soldiers, To capture the lighting on set and on To do that, the modelers started with Mayan warriors, and Wild West cow- location, Rhythm & Hues brought along reference data from the taxidermy ani- boys. But, there are issues: The Romans a six-sided camera the studio invented to mals on set because the CG animals and the cowboys get territorial. The lions capture HDRI data. “It’s a cube with six needed to be the same size and shape want to eat something…or someone. And, cameras,” explains Rhythm & Hues’ visual as the exhibits. For the lion, they built the T. rex wants to play. Play? Of course. effects supervisor Dan DeLeeuw. “We can on technology developed for Aslan, but Night at the Museum is, after all, a com- gather a range of exposures to determine changed his face and eyes. Giving the edy, directed by Shawn Levy. It stars Ben how intense the lights were and where they creatures’ fur more texture and sheen Stiller as Larry Daly, a hapless museum were. It captures from only one position, so than the stuffi es helped bring them alive. security guard, Robin Williams as it isn’t exact, but you can get very close.” Aslan’s mane, for example, helped Teddy Roosevelt, Owen Wilson Equally important, using this gizmo the crew create the woolly mammoth’s as a cowboy, and kept the action moving on the set. “It long hair, which they draped over its 14- a legion of was a huge saving grace,” says Rygiel. foot-tall body. “Our mammoth just fi ts other come- “Normally, we have to shut down the crew through the hallways,” DeLeeuw says. “It dians. The for 15 minutes. Instead, we’d pop this was a lot of work designing the hair to 20th Century Fox thing in there, and in 30 seconds we’d be keep the right scale because hair doesn’t production, which is done. Then, when we’d start lighting, we scale proportionately.” based on an illustrated children’s book by were 80 percent there, so we could work To help the hair groomers create Milan Trenc, opened in time to catch holi- on fi ne details rather than starting from appropriately sized clumps of fur, and the day season moviegoers. scratch. It was a big help.” technical animators move the hair at the Three-time Oscar winner Jim Rygiel As the production progressed, Rhythm & right speed, DeLeeuw had them position puzzled through the visual effects, which Hues’ shot count grew from approximately a human stand-in next to the digital crea- were largely accomplished by Rhythm 280 to around 400. “That’s the nature of ture. “A strand of mammoth hair might & Hues, with Rainmaker Animation & comedy,” says DeLeeuw. “Everything be three feet long,” he explains. “If you Visual Effects handling a large sequence changes by the minute. Ben [Stiller] and didn’t keep that in mind, it would swing and two Egyptian jackals. In addition, Shawn [Levy] would walk on set and Ben too wildly and blow the scale.” The Orphanage caused an Easter Island would get a brainstorm. He’s say, ‘We need One of the more interesting charac- statue to blow bubbles, and Weta Digital a moose that gets stuck at the door.’ I’d say, ters that Rhythm & Hues built was the T. animated a water-spewing whale. Image ‘We’re not supposed to build a moose. But, rex. Even though the animal is a skeleton, Engine Design prevized the show, and OK, sure, we can build a moose.’” the bare-boned behemoth behaved as if it Giant Studios provided the motion-cap- Rhythm & Hues’ work on Aslan and were a fully muscled dinosaur. And, the ture data. The digital makeup work by other animals for Narnia helped the studio lack of fur gave the animation crew free- Lola Visual Effects remains, as always, a land this show, but the moose wasn’t the dom to transition the animal from an evil, highly guarded secret. only new animal created for Night at the angry creature into a playful puppy. “With “One of the reasons I picked this show Museum. “With each show, our library of this animal, the animators could play was for the range of effects,” says Rygiel. animals gets bigger,” says DeLeeuw. “For with the performance,” says DeLeeuw. “And it was a comedy. Some shows, even this one, we added 10 animals, including “They didn’t have to worry about techni- though they’re done very well, instantly an antelope, elephant, mammoth, oryx, cal aspects. But, they did have to give the scream ‘effects.’ I like the challenge of ostrich, moose, zebra, and a T. rex.” The skeleton the weight of an actual T. rex.” making things so real that you know studio builds models in Autodesk’s Maya, The skeleton runs as if it weighed tons. In you’re watching something odd, but creates particle and other effects with Side fact it’s the only animal that shakes the you’re not quite sure where that line is.” Effects’ Houdini, and paints in Adobe’s camera as it runs through the museum. Photoshop. For everything else, the artists Compositors added the camera shake by Wild Animals use proprietary software. vibrating the live-action plate. Although the fi lm was prevized, Rygiel Even though the lion and the other “Obviously, the T. rex was not com- knew that the director, who was work- animals in Night at the Museum fi rst plicated,” says Rygiel, “but it’s cool that ing with effects for the fi rst time, might appear as the work of taxidermists, when we see this literal skeleton of bones, on

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. . . . Visual Effects

maker,’” DeLeeuw explains. “Everyone is playing soccer. The ostrich runs across the room, gets in front of the camera, and breaks the fourth wall. It gave the animators a chance to have more fun.” That sequence was one of two that DeLeeuw singles out as most diffi cult. It takes place in the long main hall of the museum, which he estimates to be over 100 feet long. “The shot has every asset we built, every Visual effects artists at Rhythm & Hues matched the taxidermist’s lion and then brought the creature to animal, every diorama,” he life by applying some of the hair and fur technology they used to create Narnia’s Aslan. says. “We hooked a Spydercam which we didn’t do any squash or stretch, turn from a looming to one end and fl ew it to the other, and then repeated it using character in the beginning that Ben [Stiller] thinks will tear his different layers of greenscreen so that we could insert CG char- head off, into a puppy dog that only wants to play fetch. And it’s acters between layers of extras.” The Spydercam system is a just bones moving. You can’t get a smile from that mouth. It’s computer-controlled rig that can speed a camera along a cable all in the animation.” at up to 60 miles per hour. Although the lion and the T. rex were the hero characters, The second diffi cult sequence was an animal stampede one animal squeezed past them to center stage—the ostrich. To down a staircase. “It was hard because we had to animate each create feathers for the big bird, Rhythm & Hues modifi ed the and every animal ducking and running and jumping over other studio’s fur system to make the hair longer and wider. To create animals, and the ostrich gets tossed from side to side,” DeLeeuw plumes, they had the hair grow hairs. says. “In CG, there’s nothing to stop one model from interpen- It was the creature’s actions, though, that pushed this ani- etrating another.” mal into the foreground: Animators couldn’t resist giving the To create the scene, an animator performed each animal sep- bird bizarre behaviors. “It’s like the extra that always wants to arately starting with one, and then adding the animal next to get his face in the shot,” says DeLeeuw. “If you look to the left in it, saving out that section, and so forth. “It was a puzzle,” says the African hall, you can see the ostrich hamming it up in the DeLeeuw. “Once the director approved the animation, we cor- background. It was funny, so he got more and more shots.” rected everything from the camera view with brute force.” They In fact, at the end of the fi lm, the animators put the ostrich removed the lioness’s leg from inside the zebra, slid feet, pulled right into the camera. “It’s in a shot that we called the ‘widow- aside rib cages, and so forth.

Animators at Rhythm & Hues fl exed their muscles to turn the boney The ostrich, elephant, zebra, and oryx are among the 10 new animals T. rex from a scary skeleton into a playful puppy, while giving the Rhythm & Hues produced for Night at the Museum. To create ostrich creature the same weight it would have had if fully fl eshed. feathers, the crew modifi ed the studio’s fur software.

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Image by Eva Kolenko, BFA, Photography GRAPHIC DESIGN ANIMATION & VISUAL EFFECTS COMPUTER ARTS–NEW MEDIA FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHITECTURE ADVERTISING INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN MOTION PICTURES & TELEVISION ILLUSTRATION FASHION

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. . . . Visual Effects

The Littlest Cowboys ter and a monkey walked through the fi ght. Rhythm & Hues Perhaps the biggest puzzles, however, were the dioramas. At scanned Stiller to create stand-in geometry for casting shadows one point in the fi lm, all the little characters in the dioramas, and for the Massive characters to have something to avoid or, in the tiny models that depict ancient civilizations, come to life some cases, walk onto. and attack Stiller’s character. The most important of these from Lighting and compositing these little people into the live- a visual effects standpoint were the Wild West diorama, with action sequences required careful preparation during fi lming. its cowboys and railroad workers, and the Roman exhibit, with “One of the hard parts with the miniature people in the diora- centurions and archers. The miniature people were actors shot mas,” Rygiel says, “was that we could shoot them on green- on greenscreen stages with digital crowds following behind. screen, but to make them feel like they were in dioramas, we One of the cowboys is actor Owen Wilson. had to do multiple shots with depth of fi eld.” The fi lm crew shot the dioramas on huge greenscreen stages The same was true for any background in which the little peo- in Vancouver; the diorama set was eight feet by six feet. “In ple appeared. The depth of fi eld for a three-inch cowboy is only some shots, the camera on the greenscreen had to be 20 or 30 two inches; everything outside that area is blurred. “We wanted to feet in the air to match medium shots on Ben [Stiller],” says control that, and control how quickly the focus would fall off,” says DeLeeuw. “When the stage wasn’t big enough, we had to scale Rygiel. To gain that control, they shot multiple depth-of-fi eld passes the photography in compositing and use CG little people. The with a still camera any time they were shooting in the miniature rule we used for the CG characters was that we kept them to world, changing the focus every few inches to get the full range of one-third the size of a frame. And we didn’t want to ever replace depth of fi eld. Later, they could mix and match the stills in the vir- actors like Wilson with CG.” tual world to put everything they wanted into focus. When the characters leave their dioramas and fi ght for ter- “It was like what you do when you’re creating virtual-world ritory on the fl oor of the museum, Rhythm & Hues called on tile sets,” explains Rygiel. “Except, we had the added problem Massive software to create behaviors using motion-captured of needing not only tile sets all around, but for each tile we had cycles and pre-programmed brains. “It was a comedy, so we to rack-focus 10 times so each set had a depth of fi eld from one couldn’t let the fi ght get violent,” says DeLeeuw. “They threw inch to infi nity.” punches, but there weren’t any sword hits.” The Massive characters also knew to move out of the way when Stiller’s charac- In Deep For example, during one sequence the little people run outside and jump off a loading dock to stop two of the actors from escap- ing in a van. For this shot, Bruce Woloshyn, visual effects supervisor at Rainmaker, shot 4K digital stills of the backgrounds to vary the depth of fi eld. “A majority of the shots that needed multiple plates were handled by Dan [DeLeeuw], though,” he says. “It was fun to be there when he was shooting his plates and have him there when I was shooting mine.” Woloshyn’s years as a compositor served him well as he considered what he would need during principal photography. “You have to know in your head what you will do months later, but you have to make the decision right on set,” he says. “We had only a limited time with Owen [Wilson], so we shot backgrounds and greenscreens on the same days. I thought the digital stills would give us more fl exibility. I knew that when we got into [Autodesk’s] Inferno later, we could pick which pieces to use and do artifi cial camera moves.” Rainmaker also created the Egyptian guards—creatures that have the bodies of human men and heads of jackals. The guards were Rainmaker’s fi rst feature-fi lm creatures. “It was a big learning experience,” says Woloshyn. “We weren’t doing skinned creatures; we were trying to do rock. But making the statues look big and muscular was a big challenge.” The crews shot the dioramas on huge greenscreen stages, fi lmed Modelers used scans by Gentle Giant of full-sized set pieces the actors playing the little people separately, and at times added as reference for the digital doubles, which they created with CG people to create such scenes as these with actor Ben Stiller. NewTek’s LightWave. In the fi lm, even when the statues appear

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Visual Effects. . . .

Rainmaker brought these Egyptian guards to life using a combination of NewTek’s LightWave and Autodesk’s Maya software, rigging them with inverse and forward kinematics. They rendered the living statues in Mental Ray and composited them in Digital Fusion.

synched an Easter Island head and caused it to blow a bubblegum bub- ble. The studio worked in Maya for modeling, to be still, Rainmaker added subtle movements—a slight tight- rigging, and animation, and rendered the result in Maya through ening of a fi st, a head turn. To rig the jackal-like creatures, Mental Ray. Rainmaker used Maya, creating both inverse and forward kine- “The way we sell the idea that this rock talks is that as his matics so that the digital guards could more easily use the spears mouth moves, pieces of rock crack and shift around his mouth,” they carried. “Sometimes a hand controls the spear,” Woloshyn says Kevin Baillie, visual effects supervisor at The Orphanage. says. “Sometimes the spear controls a hand.” “So, we still have the stretching that you need for a talking 3D To fi nd a balance between making the creatures look alive character, but it’s hidden by the plates shifting around his mouth. yet be convincing as statues, Rainmaker experimented with a It ended up being a really successful look. People kept referring to muscle system, but rippling muscles made the granite appear it as a simulation because it looked like we moved geometry.” rubbery. Instead, they built a rigid-body skin and used custom For its part, Weta Digital brought a whale statue to life. In blendshapes at the knees and elbows for extreme poses. “It was the sequence, a whale sprays water at guards walking through a hard to fi nd the right balance of rigid stone and fl exible joints,” door. A simple sequence, but to create it, Weta used two simula- says Woloshyn. “But we couldn’t have the statues look like men tion systems: a fl uid simulation system for the water and a new in rubber suits.” skinning system for the whale. “The new skinning system cal- Using data captured by Rhythm & Hues with the six-camera culates volumetric collisions on the muscles,” says Eric Saindon, HDRI device, the Rainmaker crew lit the gold-skirted creatures visual effects supervisor at Weta. “[Night at the Museum] was a to match the on-set lighting. “I also had 4K fi sh-eye images, but good test; we got good results.” The team accomplished most of taking those photos wasn’t always an option because the pro- the work in Maya, then rendered the whale in RenderMan and duction crew moved so fast,” Woloshyn says. “So, I shot a color composited the shots in Apple’s Shake. chart on the fl oor of the set at 4K in the same lighting setup. That Although the fi lm has received mixed reviews, the effects way, I could check the color between my system and Rhythm & have been lauded by the visual effects community: Night at Hues’ to be sure there were no issues.” the Museum was one of seven fi lms chosen to compete at the The crew rendered the creatures in fl oating point EXR format annual visual effects bakeoff for an Oscar nomination. Rygiel using Mental Images’ Mental Ray, generating separate passes for believes that may be partly because the fi lm has such variety— the granite bodies and the gold costumes. Compositors assem- including practical effects. “We had the greenscreen rigs, a rig bled the layers in Eyeon Software’s Digital Fusion. For remov- for the kid riding on the back of the T. rex, and a riding rig for ing the miniature people from greenscreens though, Woloshyn Ben [Stiller] during the horse chase, as well as snow effects and used Inferno. “On weekends, I could sit in an empty suite and explosions,” he says. play with the depth of fi eld, then save the setups I liked and In fact, you could think of the fi lm as a collage of effects. hand them to Randall Rosa, who supervised all the work on the “That’s what I fi nd so interesting,” says Rygiel. “I love the jackals once the models were built.” puzzle work.”

Blowing Bubbles Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contribut- Like Rainmaker, The Orphanage had to make a character cre- ing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at

ated from rock move believably: During their 20 shots, they lip- [email protected].

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. . . . Medical Viz/CAD

n the whole, product designers enjoy otheir work—after all, it’s fun to create a sleek new cover for an electronics device or an innovative children’s toy. But their job gets even more satisfying when they’re able to design something that makes the world a better place by saving lives. Such was the case for the designers at Strategix Vision, a product a design with design and development company based in Bozeman, Montana, when they were asked to develop a device to make heart surgery safer and less invasive. That device, the Embrace Heart Stabilizer, holds the heart and coronary artery in position during coronary bypass surgery, allowing a surgeon to bypass the Heart blocked artery without having to stop the CAD tools and a collaborative effort bring a heart and maintain the patient on a heart- lung machine. The procedure is therefore new medical design to life less risky and invasive, and makes for a shorter recovery time for the patient. What’s particularly special about the Embrace is its minimalist design, which offers the surgeon more room to work as well as better By Jenny Donelan overall access to the chest cavity. Strategix Vision developed the Embrace in conjunction with strategic product

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Medical Viz/CAD. . . .

development company Herbst LaZar Bell, the effort it took [for surgeons] to oper- which provided human factors analysis ate. We also wanted to make the device and other design input, as well as with more intuitive to use,” he says. CardioVations, a division of Ethicon, a The team got started using Adobe’s Johnson & Johnson company. The device Photoshop and Illustrator for early con- is now marketed by CardioVations. ceptual studies. From there, it proceeded directly to designing in SolidWorks, which Laying the Groundwork it used in conjunction with Nvidia’s Quadro Strategix Vision employs industrial design- FX professional graphics card. This com- ers, mechanical and electrical engineers, bination made it possible for the team to Designers at Strategix Vision and user researchers who work together rotate the 3D model on screen in real time. used CAD tools and a strong collaborative effort to design to design and develop medical, industrial, Says Swendseid, “It really, and I the award-winning Embrace scientifi c, and consumer products. The mean really, helps to be able to rotate a Heart Stabilizer, a device that company had already designed numerous model in real time and not have lag and positions and stabilizes the medical devices, such as a defi brillator not have to wait for a redraw in order to heart during coronary bypass and an apparatus for managing urinary talk about designs.” surgery. The rendering at left incontinence, when it began collaborating Because both CardioVations and shows the interior workings with CardioVations a few years ago. Strategix Vision are SolidWorks users, of a portion of the Stabilizer. About a year before work on the says Albini, their team members were The entire device, below, Embrace even began, the two companies able to share fi les to review and develop features an unobtrusive cooperated with each other on designs for the design. For other projects, he notes, profi le that frees up space a different heart stabilizer, using design Strategix Vision often uses the e-drawings in which surgeons can work. software from SolidWorks for initial form module of SolidWorks, which allows non- and mechanical studies, as well as for CAD experts to review and rotate review. This project went as far as the models in 3D without having to creation of working prototypes that were know the intricacies of the full reviewed by cardio-thoracic surgeons. SolidWorks package. When the Embrace project came along, Whatever the project and much of the groundwork had already been whatever the package, says laid, both in terms of tools and in inter-com- Svendseid, close collaboration pany communications. “It was a natural is part of the Strategix Vision work ethic. progression for us,” says Kent Swendseid, “Designers work closely with the engi- design director for Strategix Vision, who neers in our company. We try to have an notes that having an already-established open structure where everyone can have relationship and a common seman- an opinion, so we had many discussions tic design and usability language with around computers and projected images CardioVations made the whole Embrace in order to set directions and quickly work project run more smoothly. “We just had through new ideas,” says Swendseid. “The to apply everything we had learned previ- ously to a different and explicit technology. It was like writing a story in which we had set the scene and now were introducing a new character.”

New Kind of Heart Stabilizer The impetus for the Embrace, according to Strategix Vision design engineering director Marty Albini, was to improve on an existing product by making it smaller and more ergonomic. “The idea was to free up some of the space it took up in the operating theater and reduce

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. . . . Medical Viz/CAD

great thing about all the visualization tools we have at hand—from sketches to CAD—is that they allow us to understand each other in a common language. I don’t know exactly how to be an engineer, but I can certainly understand what an engineer means and what that implies to a design when I can see it.”

Meeting Challenges Even with Strategix Vision’s pre-established culture of collaboration, and even though the project was not radically different from the work the company typically performs, notes Swendseid, “the Embrace did present unique problems in ergo- nomics, mechanics, usability, and a specifi c user scenario.” That last factor—the user scenario—involved a full understanding of who would be using the product, as well as how, and why. It is a vital ingredient of how designers “get it right” when creating products that people want to use. “What we passionately strive to do,” says Swendseid, “is create relevance and a great experience for the user by reaching beyond the functional requirements of a product and into its meaning.” Therefore, chief among the challenges was “forming a device that meets the mind-set of the surgeon,” says Svendseid. Specifi cally, that meant reducing the footprint on the retractor in order to increase working space for the doctor, and creating intuitive controls for adjustments and activation, among other requirements. “Mechanically, the biggest challenge was keeping the size down while still providing adequate force to the gooseneck to stiffen it enough to hold the heart,” notes Albini. After the design had progressed to the point of general approval, it was then tuned with rapid prototypes made in- Both teams were experienced SolidWorks users, so designs and house at Strategix Vision. “We use a variety of tools, includ- revisions for features such as the “toes” (top) that make contact with ing video projectors, to get a detailed view of what we’re work- the heart could be reviewed in the same software. Levers and other ing on,” explains Albini. “And there are some cool visualization controls (bottom) were designed to work as intuitively as possible. tools that have emerged since the Embrace was designed that are helping us now as well, like RealView, a real-time texture- course, he’s quick to point out, all the groundwork laid before- map visualization feature in SolidWorks that lets you dress up hand has to be factored in as well. the models with realistic-looking surfaces.” (RealView, says Fielder Hiss, manager of product management for SolidWorks, Success was developed by SolidWorks in conjunction with Nvidia, and When surgeons saw one of the fi rst Embrace units at a trade show involves “almost photorealistic, real-time graphics.” Designers and reacted extremely positively, the folks at Strategix Vision and can see the refl ection of metal or the look of wood while they CardioVations knew they had a success on their hands. This was work, without having to wait for the fi le to render out.) confi rmed by an IDEA award for the design from BusinessWeek With or without such helpful eye candy, Albini says that at a magazine last year. The unit is now in production and in use. certain juncture it’s important for designers and potential users “We can always be proud of our work as designers,” says alike to have a physical prototype to hold. Albini, “but you can’t fool someone who uses these things every “In medical design, you need buy-in from doctors, and the day. If they like it, it’s good. Product design is hard. There are feel is paramount—how something feels their hands,” says Hiss. always problems to solve, competing goals to balance, and late “So it’s important to get prototypes into doctors’ hands quickly.” nights spent making it all work. A project like this makes all In fact, the designers did just that. Their work on the that worthwhile.” Embrace turned out to be breathtakingly fast: “Once the fi nal design direction was chosen, it took about four weeks to exe- Jenny Donelan is a contributing editor for Computer Graphics

cute, with a couple of brief corrections later on,” says Albini. Of World. She can be reached at [email protected].

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. . . . Stereoscopy

IMAX and CG animation are natural part- and fastest grossing ners. Animation creates immersive worlds digitally re-mastered of fantasy; with its almost eight-story-high IMAX release. screen, multi-channel digital surround With one icy train sound, and 15-perf 70mm prints, IMAX ride, IMAX 3D gained creates the ne plus ultra of immersive an infusion of enthusi- environments. With the emergence of the asm that has resulted in 3D CG-animated feature, the idea of seeing two more CG-animated titles, all those three dimensions on the IMAX both of them from among the crop

screen became an irresistible challenge. of 2006 animated features: The Ant Bully Recently That idea became a reality in 2004 and Open Season. “There has been a resur- a handful of when Warner Bros. Pictures released gence of interest in stereoscopic fi lms,” says 3D CG-animated features The Polar Express in IMAX 3D. This was IMAX vice president of technical produc- have made the transition from theaters to the fi rst full-length Hollywood feature to tion Hugh Murray, who also played the role stereoscopic IMAX, including Open Season, be converted to IMAX 3D—and it was of IMAX producer for The Polar Express, The Ant Bully, and The Polar Express. In order a smash hit, with some critics prefer- The Ant Bully, and Open Season. “The digi- to see the three-dimensional effect, ring the stereoscopic version to the more tal stereoscopic fi lms have all been in the audience members wear special glasses. widely released 2D version. And box offi ce works since The Polar Express, so it’s either wasn’t bad either: After a disappoint- a big coincidence or The Polar Express has fi lm was the 11-minute We Are Born ing opening, the fi lm gained momen- ignited a new wave of interest.” of Stars, in 1985, and in 1989, Echoes of tum, in large part buoyed by the IMAX IMAX, which was founded in Toronto the Sun, a 20-minute, partially CG ste- 3D version. During some weeks, the 3D in 1967, has a long history in stereoscopic reoscopic fi lm, was created for the 1990 IMAX version accounted for 24 to 30 per- fi lmmaking. “3D has been a part of IMAX World Expo in Osaka, Japan. IMAX’s fi rst cent of each day’s gross take. For IMAX, since the very beginning,” says Murray. live-action 3D fi lm was Transitions, for The Polar Express became the highest The fi rst stereoscopic CG-animated IMAX the 1986 Vancouver World Expo.

CG-animated films hit the third

dimension in a big way

By Debra Kaufman

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Stereoscopy. . . .

“A lot of IMAX’s early history was about tion venue for Hollywood features, draw- possibility of transforming 3D computer- special-venue attractions like world fairs ing in audiences seeking entertainment generated fi lms into stereoscopic IMAX and expos,” explains Murray. “From the rather than education. IMAX Experience fi lms the moment they saw Toy Story. “We beginning, there was a drive to do some- fi lms include Star Wars: Episode II— thought, here’s a fi lm already made in 3D thing better than was ever done before. Attack of the Clones, The Matrix Reloaded, but not rendered in 3D,” says Murray. “We The next ‘better’ was to do it in 3D.” In The Matrix Revolutions, Harry Potter and approached Pixar with the idea of doing it fact, 3D live-action fi lms have steadily the Prisoner of Azkaban, Batman Begins, [in IMAX 3D], but they were already busy been a hit on IMAX screens. James Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and on their next feature. So we decided to do Cameron’s Aliens of the Deep, Bugs!, Deep Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. a demonstration on our own.” Sea 3D, and many others have been pop- The IMAX DMR process starts by scan- IMAX’s CyberWorld, released in 2000, is ular at IMAX theaters everywhere (see ning each 35mm frame, at the highest res- a museum tour —led by cyber Phig (Jenna “Atypical Stereo,” July 2003). olution possible, into the digital realm. Elfman)—of existing 3D clips, from the Proprietary image enhancement tools opti- 3D episode of The Simpsons to the movie Hollywood Goes IMAX mize each image for 70mm fi lm, includ- Antz. During the tour, three unwelcome In the live-action realm, IMAX made a ing sharpening, color correction, grain guests barge into the museum, and Phig breakthrough with Apollo 13, released removal, and stabilization. These digital is forced into a battle to save the muse- in September 2002, the fi rst fi lm to ben- images are then recorded onto 15/70 fi lm. um’s 3D environment. “It was intended efi t from a new IMAX technology. IMAX The 35mm fi lm’s original soundtrack is to show people how amazing it would DMR is a proprietary technology that also re-mastered for IMAX’s multi-chan- look to take 3D CG animation and show it enables the conventional Hollywood fea- nel digital surround sound system. stereoscopically,” says Murray, who was ture fi lm to be digitally re-mastered into responsible for the original story and co- IMAX’s big-screen format as a so-called IMAX 3D: The Process wrote the screenplay with Charlie Rubin IMAX Experience. With the IMAX DMR This proprietary system laid the foundation and Steve Hoban. (Digital Re-Mastering) technology, the for developing the IMAX 3D DMR process. The intention bore fruit very quickly. IMAX theater network became a distribu- IMAX executives were interested in the Steve Oedekirk created the IMAX 3D hol-

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. . . . Stereoscopy

iday fi lm Santa vs. the Snowman in 2001, in which a lonely snowman is fi rst captivated by Santa’s village and then, out of jealousy, wages war on him and his elves in a battle that features hot chocolate squirt guns and a 50-foot-tall toy soldier. However, IMAX 3D didn’t gain much traction after that fi lm. “We talked to a lot of studios about taking 3D CG and rendering it stereoscopically,” recalls Murray. “Many of them were enthusiastic. The problem is that a CG animated fi lm is a huge undertaking and, with an IMAX 3D fi lm, they’d be making two fi lms. Even though many studios were fascinated by the look, it became diffi cult for them to take that leap of faith to get things done.” That is, until powerhouse director Robert Zemeckis decided that The Polar Express would be the perfect fi lm to roll out in both 35mm theatrical release and the highly immersive IMAX 3D. © Warner Bros. Pictures. Bros. © Warner The Warner Bros. fi lm was created at Sony Pictures Imageworks (see “Locomotion,” December 2004). “I think that when the people at Imageworks fi rst met me, they thought their worst nightmare had hap- pened,” Murray recalls. “But they quickly became Often fi lmmakers create an offset camera view for stereo, but for a scene in The Polar Express, they had to reposition both views due to a composition change in the fi lm. converts when they saw how it looked.” At Imageworks, senior CG supervisor Rob Engle was put in talk about creating a CG feature, you’re trying to create a different charge of the 3D project and credited as digital effects supervi- world. In [the stereoscopic] Polar Express, when snow is falling, sor. “IMAX wanted to make a movie in 3D, and Bob Zemeckis people feel like snow is falling in the theater. I believe these cre- is always trying to push the craft of fi lmmaking and was ated worlds lend themselves to immersion. They help make peo- already interested in IMAX,” says Engle. “So it was a good ple part of the whole experience—the IMAX 3D Experience.” meeting of the minds.” The second issue is a technical one. “Digital technology In facing the challenge of turning a 2D CGI fi lm into stereo- allows you to create a second movie, which is for another eye, scopic IMAX, Engle saw two issues. “The fi rst thing you have to at a reasonably small incremental cost compared to producing a talk about is the content and how it lends itself to stereoscopic movie from scratch or shooting a live-action movie with a stereo 3D,” he says. “With a live-action movie, you’re often telling a rig,” Engle notes. “To move a camera and take another picture story with the physics and realities of the real world. When you doesn’t really cost a lot in a virtual world.”

ANOTHER BIG PICTURE

The Polar Express certainly got stereo CGI on the right tier to have visual depth,” he says. In 2002, in partner- Real D created an entertainment-oriented solution that track. Overnight, the stereoscopic fi lm genre trans- ship with Joshua Greer, Lewis started Real D, a digital would make it easy and affordable enough to install in formed from a novelty to a viable way of bringing 3D experience provider, with the intent of developing hundreds of theaters across the country. viewers back to the movie theater. IMAX 3D—with technology for 3D in cinema. What the company came up with was a system for its 170-plus number of 3D-equipped theaters—has The fi rst step was licensing ZScreen cinema technol- exhibitors that required an upgrade to a digital projec- drawn in thousands of people eager for the large- ogy from StereoGraphics, a company founded in 1980 tor, a silver screen, and disposable glasses. Real D’s digi- screen, large-format immersive experience. that produced shuttering eyewear for telerobotics, the fi rst tal projector partners are Christie, Barco, and NEC; its Michael V. Lewis, who produced the 1999 IMAX fl icker-free 3D display, and Crystal Eyes eyewear, which server partners are Kodak Digital Cinema, Doremi, and 3D Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box and co-produced became a standard in industrial virtual reality. (NASA QuVis. Theater owners, many of whom already possess the 1998 T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous, says he fell in used Crystal Eyes to pilot the Mars Rover spacecraft.) a DLP digital projector, simply added Real D’s shuttering love with the realism of 3D—as long as it’s done right. In 2005, Real D acquired StereoGraphics. Taking device, the ZScreen. This hardware/software device fi ts “We keep coming back to it because it’s the last fron- the science from StereoGraphics’ 26 years of R&D, on the front of the projector, running 144 fl ashes a sec-

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Stereoscopy. . . . © Warner Bros. Pictures. Bros. © Warner

The Polar Express helped move CG animation into IMAX 3D. However, Creating a Stereo CG Film certain 2D techniques used in producing a CG theatrical release, The process for creating a stereoscopic fi lm is based on how the especially those affecting the image plane, become issues in 3D space. brain and the eyes work together to see in three dimensions. Our two eyes see a single point from two slightly different positions, left eye, but we can switch back and forth depending on the and the brain fuses together those two images. An IMAX 3D fi lm composition of the shot.” comprises two separate strips of fi lm, one showing the view- For the scene in The Polar Express whereby the train comes point of the right eye and the other the left eye, projected onto a to a screeching halt in front of the screen, the fi lmmakers had to special silver IMAX 3D screen. Audience members wear custom- reposition both eyes to keep the train from veering to the left or designed polarized IMAX 3D glasses, which channel the right- right. “The composition can change in 3D, so you have to watch eye image to the right eye and the left-eye image to the left eye. for that,” Engle says. (Some IMAX theaters use electronic liquid crystal shutter glasses, which sense an infrared signal from the projection system. The Dos and Don’ts projector sequentially projects the left-eye image and the right- Though simply creating an offset of the original movie—a fairly eye image without overlap, and the glasses, which are synchro- uncomplicated task in the virtual world—sounds simple, the nized to the projector, block light to each eye in the sequence.) transformation of a 2D theatrical release into a stereoscopic fi lm In producing a stereoscopic IMAX fi lm from a CG animated holds numerous pitfalls. “On paper, you create a separate cam- feature, the fi lmmakers start with the initial camera used for era, take another shot of the scene, re-render all the elements, the theatrical release and, on a per-shot basis, create an “off- and then re-composite it, producing another eye,” says Engle. set” that represents the other eye. “On a per-shot basis, we can “The questions become, how do you make this more effi cient, decide to make the theatrical release the right- or left-eye [ren- how do you streamline the process? So many of the techniques der],” explains Engle. “Our general rule of thumb is that it’s the used to create the theatrical release are 2D techniques, like matte

ond, alternating left-eye/right-eye views. For viewing, aters, exhibitors had three times the box offi ce than recently when exhibitor Carmike announced plans to audience members wear disposable polarized glasses. their theaters with 2D,” says Lewis. equip 500 screens with Real D’s stereoscopic gear. Of “It takes 15 minutes to install the hardware/soft- Following the 3D version of Chicken Little was these, 200 screens are expected to be ready for the release ware upgrade,” says Lewis. “We supply the installa- Monster House, which, says Lewis, played in Real D on of Disney’s stereoscopic version of Meet the Robinsons tion, maintenance, and constant upgrades.” In return, 4 percent of the screens but accounted for 15 percent of in March 2007. That deal follows another with exhibitor the exhibitor pays Real D a combination of an annual the overall box offi ce. The stop-motion Nightmare Before Cinemark, to equip 150 screens with Real D technology. license fee and a per-ticket percentage. Christmas (which, like Chicken Little, was transformed Next year, says Lewis, his fi rm expects to release Real D’s fi rst stereoscopic fi lm was the 2005 from 2D into stereoscopy by Industrial Light & Magic) is fi ve stereoscopic fi lms in Real D-enabled theaters, as Chicken Little, and its fi rst Real D-equipped theater, also a Real D fi lm. Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf, being pro- well as begin to provide live-streaming events and the Mann Theatre’s Grauman’s Chinese Complex, was duced at Sony Pictures Animation, is expected to open concerts in 3D. “Content is blowing up,” says Lewis. completed in 2005 as well. Since then, exhibitors have November 2007 in 1000 Real D-enabled theaters. “If you build it [in 3D], they will come—and they’ve profi ted from the technology. “In Real D-enabled the- The number of Real D-enabled screens exploded been coming pretty quickly.” —Debra Kaufman

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. . . . Stereoscopy

strange in a stereoscopic IMAX movie. “CG cameras don’t have depth of fi eld, and it’s added as a forced process to make [the production] look more fi lmic,” says Murray. “With the stereoscopic fi lm, if something in the foreground is soft, it looks wrong. Depth of fi eld can feel like a mistake in the stereoscopic fi lm.” In the world of 35mm theatrical releases, directors use depth of fi eld to direct the viewers’ eyes toward something or someone specifi c. “But a lot of times, that isn’t truly necessary, because other cues will force you to look at whatever you’re supposed to look at,” says Engle. “Inevitably when someone is talking, you’ll look at that person. Another methodology is lighting. If the main character is lit brighter, you’re going to look at that person.” The solution? “Ideally, you’d just turn off the Image courtesy D. Real depth of fi eld everywhere,” says Murray. “But you Digital 3D experience provider Real D uses a StereoGraphics-based solution that can’t always do that. We leave the out-of-focus back- offers an easy, cost-effi cient method for making theaters stereo-capable. ground alone. It’s only the foreground where it is an painting or rotoscoping. Anything associated with the image issue.” As a result, depth-of-fi eld issues resulted in a re-render plane becomes problematic when going into the 3D world.” for both eyes in about 20 percent of The Polar Express. In one Polar Express shot, the shadow of a character was roto- The re-render wasn’t strictly for depth of fi eld. 2D cheats scoped into the ground plane. “When converted to 3D, that roto often used in 3D CG fi lms is also an issue that has to be dealt naturally didn’t stick to the surface,” says Engle. “It fl oated off with in the 2D-to-3D transformation. “3D is always slightly the surface and appeared as a dark mass, like a card sticking more complicated because there is a mathematical aspect to it up in space. Since each shot has a life of its own, once you get that is not present in 2D,” says Murray. “You have to do calcu- it into the 3D realm, you inherit all those little problems.” Engle lations for every shot to see if it’s going to work, and then you reports that Imageworks uses a variety of techniques to over- need to check it. Because CG fi lms are rendered in layers, for come these “little problems,” including warping or re-project- some things 2D cheats are used instead of real 3D elements. If ing the image. you’re making a stereo vision, you have to put in the geometry “If you were to look at each eye, neither of them exactly match in place of those cheats.” the theatrical release,” Engle says. “We do a few other things to In creating a left- and right-eye render, many aspects of the make the 3D experience better. One of them, we tend to dial back two images are identical. Yet, some are slightly different, and on the use of depth of fi eld and blur. Everything is a little sharper in the 3D version, and that allows the viewers to look at things in the foreground and background, instead of having a narrow depth of fi eld where they’re only able to look at one object in the scene. The result is that it becomes a more immersive

experience. People are less Pictures. Bros. Warner courtesy Image aware that they’re watching a movie and feel more a part of the world.” In fact, depth of ﬁ eld—an accepted convention in the ordinary theatrical release— This summer, the CG animated feature The Ant Bully was also released in IMAX 3D format, in which the can actually look rather human world appeared even larger, especially to the main characters, nearly all of whom are insects.

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Stereoscopy. . . .

With the growing popularity of large-format stereo fi lms, Sony Pictures Imageworks recently created a 3D division, paving the way for more of its CG movies to follow in the tracks of Open Season. reoscopic or partially stereoscopic fi lms in the past. Likewise, exhibitors—wor- ried about fl agging atten- dance—showed their support and remain intrigued by the possibilities of 3D as a way to show fi lms that can’t be seen at home. The Polar Express: The IMAX 3D Experience was such a hit for Warner Bros. and for Sony that WB ven-

© Sony Pictures Imageworks. tured again into that ter- lighting is one of them. “You can take advantage of the fact ritory with The Ant Bully this past summer. Open Season, a that these images are 99 percent the same,” says Engle. “You’ve production of the new Sony Pictures Animation, also had an already produced one eye—why not characterize what’s differ- IMAX 3D release, as both fi lms utilized Imageworks’ success- ent and then transfer the information that isn’t? That way, you fully effi cient pipeline and customized tools developed dur- don’t have to re-render everything.” How you handle the infor- ing the work for The Polar Express: IMAX 3D Experience. (The mation that isn’t the same, that’s the proprietary part.” Warner Bros./Animal Logic movie Happy Feet is showing in Another issue that can arise when translating a 2D CG fi lm IMAX as well, but not in stereoscopy.) Most recently, the live- for stereoscopic viewing is that the new camera angle can reveal action Superman Returns was transformed into the 3D IMAX things not found in the original point of view; new CG work can format through the same DMR technology. be required to extend an object found Last Spring, Sony announced the in the 2D version. creation of Imageworks 3D, a divi- Part of a facility’s contract with IMAX includes a Making the two eyes work takes sion that put a stake in the ground standard list of dos and don’ts, which IMAX vice some tweaking. Though productions with regard to future stereoscopic president of technical production Hugh Murray cannot are usually able to retain a vast major- work. Now, in principle, every CG share with the general public. But he does offer two ity of the information contained in the production produced at Sony Pictures bits of advice for making the transition to stereo easier: original 2D version, all the changes Animation could be converted for ste- made in creating the second eye has • IMAX is a wide-angle medium, and 3D works best reoscopic viewing via IMAX or other to be fi nessed. “They probably ren- if the camera’s fi eld of view matches that of the means (see “Another Big Picture,” pg. der each shot fi ve or six times to get it stereoscopic version. So use the widest possible 26). Yet, not all the changes are occur- right,” says Murray. In an ideal world, lens, or at least avoid telephoto lenses, which ring at the studios. IMAX is devel- a director who knows in advance that produce results that don’t look good in 3D. oping a digital product that would the fi lm also will have an IMAX 3D • Try to avoid 2D cheats because you’ll pay for replace the current cumbersome pro- release would plan for that in produc- them later. jection system, by which two strips of tion. Not using 2D cheats, for example, 15/70 fi lm are spooled out simultane- or foreground objects out of focus are good decisions. “But fi rst, ously. IMAX also intends to deploy a high-end digital projector the person has to make a good 2D movie,” says Engle. in the second half of 2008. “We hope IMAX 3D grows,” concludes Murray. “It certainly The Future looks spectacular, and clearly the public has responded well to it.” At the 2005 ShoWest motion-picture exhibition, stereoscopic fi lms got a round of applause from some A-list directors, including James Debra Kaufman is a freelance writer in the entertainment industry.

Cameron and Robert Rodriguez, both of whom have produced ste- She can be reached at [email protected].

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. . . . Modeling / Animation

ity Framestore CFC, whose partnership has produced a number of award-winning productions, including the Walking With… Dinosaur series. Working on those shows enabled Framestore CFC to hone its prehistoric skills while creating a range of realistic CG dinosaurs that traversed land, sea, and sky. Dynamics During the past several years, the Walking With Dinosaurs shows, as well as the stu- Digital dinos blend seamlessly into live-action scenes dio’s sequels and specials, evolved from straightforward documentaries, wherein alongside humans in a unique television series dinosaurs were seen in their natural prehistoric environments (shot straight in the style of a modern wildlife documentary), By Karen Moltenbrey to the more recent programs, which introduced Marven as presenter and showed him in the shots with the creatures—even interacting with them. In Prehistoric Park, the director takes that concept a step further by placing the digital dinosaurs in a modern setting and having them interact with live actors. “One of the things we all enjoyed about Prehistoric Park was the different slant that the program makers took this time,” says VFX supervisor George Roper, who had worked on several previous Impossible Pictures collaborations. “Prehistoric Park has a little more fun to it—it is a move away from the serious documentary style of previous Walking With… projects.” To create this time-blending adventure, Framestore CFC spent 18 months planning and storyboarding, and then creating and animating the 3D creatures, In the television series Prehistoric Park, the director mixes fact and fi ction, placing dinosaurs as well as crafting the visual effects. The such these T. rexes, in a modern-day setting of a preservation park. facility also was responsible for the fi nal digital intermediate for all six one-hour In books, movies, and more, cavemen Nigel Marven while he ventures through episodes. In all, more than 70 artists, often are shown living alongside dino- time to save creatures from extinction technicians, and producers worked on saurs—a situation that is absolutely con- by bringing them back to the safety of approximately 750 shots (630 of which tradicted by archaeological and paleonto- a modern-day prehistoric park. In this were CG shots). According to Roper, that logical evidence. In fact, dinosaurs were dramatic adventure, Marven attempts to breaks down to 120 shots, or 20 min- long extinct by the time Neanderthals stock his park using time portals to jump utes of CG, per episode, from time por- walked the earth. Yet, through the judi- between time periods. Each episode con- tals and matte-painting shots to herds of cious use of computer graphics in the ITV tains several story threads, as Marven’s Triceratops and battling T. rexes. television series Prehistoric Park, prehis- adventures in a variety of prehistoric “The storyboards were quite ambi- toric beasts are shown interacting with environments contrast with those of his tious—lots of herds, numerous creatures man—modern man, that is. park staff situated in the present. running through water, fi ghts, and close Prehistoric Park, a broadcast series that The production is the latest collabora- interaction between the dinosaurs and aired in the UK, melds the present and tion between the UK production company the environments,” says CG supervisor far distant past as it follows the intrepid Impossible Pictures and visual effects facil- Laurent Hugueniot.

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Modeling / Animation. . . .

Past Experience human performers—being fed by them, “The Smilodons were the most complicated Despite Framestore CFC’s extensive expe- chasing them, and so forth, so there were of the furry creatures because they were rience wrangling digital dinos, the studio new challenges even in that regard.” shown in close-ups,” says Hugueniot. was only able to utilize its past knowl- According to Hugueniot, one of the “We implemented a system that allowed edge, not its past models, for this project. biggest challenges facing the group us to use global illumination normally “Everything was new,” says Roper. That’s involved the large number of different done in Mental Ray to tint the fur, which because the BBC produced the previous beasts, each of which had to be modeled, was rendered in Maya. The fur not only dinosaur programs, while Prehistoric Park rigged, and textured. The team mod- beneﬁ tted from direct light, but also from is an ITV creation. In fact, some of the 22 eled the dinosaurs from scans of physi- indirect bounce light from the ground types of dinosaurs featured in this series cal models provided by the clients, using and objects or other creatures, thereby are familiar and recognizable, while oth- subdivision surfaces within Autodesk’s greatly improving the quality of the light- ers are not; and not all the reptiles within Maya running on Dell workstations. ing on the furry animals.” the species are identical, as they vary in Next, the group painted high-resolution age. In fact, some of the dinosaurs that textures onto the models within Adobe’s appeared in the program were new to the Photoshop. After that, the group rigged artists: Incisivosaurus, a bird-like feathered and enveloped each creature, and then raptor with big teeth, Truoodon, another a muscle, or sometimes “fat,” simulation raptor/bird-like creature, and Deinosucus, was added for secondary movement. a 60-foot-long crocodile. While many of the beasts had rough The group began the creation pro- skin, some contained fur, which was cess with maquettes. “Some of the crea- accomplished using Maya’s Fur system. tures were old friends—Triceratops, T. rex, woolly mammoth were all creatures we had worked on before,” says animation supervisor Neil Glasbey. “But there were differences. For example, this time the T. rexes were two juvenile specimens captured in the ﬁ rst episode, which we then follow as they grow to maturity. Also, a good 50 to 60 percent of the shots feature the dinosaurs interacting with

Framestore CFC, experienced at creating realistic dinosaurs, crafted the beasts for this series. The dinos were modeled in Maya and later composited into the live action with Flame and Shake.

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. . . . Modeling / Animation

The remainder of the rendering was done within Mental Images’ Mental Ray. “We had more than 40 creatures to deal with, including the variations. We had to have a strict system to follow up the creature from the initial stages to the ﬁ nal result,” explains Hugueniot. “We automated a lot of the rendering whenever we could—another lesson we learned from past experiences.”

Natural Setting In addition to the exotic beasts, Prehistoric Park features beautiful cinematography from a number of exotic locations in the Yukon, Brazil, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, and Florida, which was used for the prehistoric scenes, while the park setting was fi lmed in South Africa. Senior Framestore CFC staffers supervised these shots, spending nearly a month on location for each episode. Some of the beasts, such as these woolly mammoths, are covered To contrast the look between the prehistoric adventures and life in fur, created with Maya’s fur system. The artists then used global back in the park, the production company shot the park scenes in illumination to enhance the fur’s lighting. HD, while the adventures were fi lmed with 16mm. The mixture of the two formats meant that the Framestore CFC team could retain in Prehistoric Park. In the show, the creatures interact with their the epic feel for the adventure segments and have a more immedi- environment, kicking trees, cages, bushes, and even attack- ate documentary feel for the park scenes. ing humans. “While diffi cult to do, it was well worth the effort, Back in the studio, once the artists animated the creatures, as [the interactivity] reinforces the illusion that the creature is they had to re-create the lighting from each location using on- seated in the environment,” Hugueniot notes. The artists shot set digital photography so that the creatures would appear to various interactions between live-action elements and the envi- receive the light from their environment. For each shot, the art- ronment—for example, someone kicking up dust or using a ists used HDR stills that were taken on location, which provided complex rig to simulate creatures attacking each other in deep water. Sometimes the artists enhanced the scene with CGI. As Roper points out, the crew has learned from past experience that bigger is better in terms of the interactions, which were then used with other bluescreen elements, also shot on location. “Our animators use these interactions as cue points for specifi c action,” he says. “Using Apple’s Shake or Discreet Inferno, we can bed them into the shot.” One of the most diffi cult sequences involving these interactions occurred during a Deinosuchus (huge croc) attack. “It was grabbing a Parasaurolophus and dragging it into deep water while it was twisting in the water,” Roper explains. To create this interaction, the crew built a rig that spanned vertically in the water, and the animators matched the action as best they could. But the shot still required hours of careful rotoscoping A croc gets ready to grab one of the dinosaurs, and when it does, it and painting on a frame-by-frame basis. twists the dino in the water as it swims away. Achieving the desired After the modeling and animation was complete, a team of interaction required artists to rotoscope and paint each frame. fi ve spent nearly eight months compositing the digital imagery an approximation of the real lighting. Then, the artists embel- into the live-action shots. This was done mainly in Shake and lished each shot by tailoring the lighting for the creature, adding Discreet’s Flame. Finally, Framestore CFC perfected the overall bounce lights, shadows, rim lights, and more. look of the series in the company’s Digital Lab. In addition to the location sets, the team also used matte Despite the fact that Prehistoric Park takes an unusual and paintings, particularly in Episode 3 for shots of an erupting more fantastic story approach, the dinosaurs nevertheless had volcano and in Episode 5 for creating a carboniferous forest. to be realistic. And that is a task that Framestore CFC has proved Moreover, the artists employed matte paintings for the park area time and again it can do well. to extend existing buildings, populate landscapes, and enhance the surrounding mountain range. Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor for Computer Graphics Another challenge for the crew was the level of interactivity World.

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. . . . Student Animations

Student Lessons in animators make

the grade on their Filmmakingnic Theater short-film projects lms—sampled GRAPHfrom among 2006 those Electro that had the If these student fi honor of appearing in the SIG By Jenny Donelan ation Theater—have any common thread, it is their and Anim sense of playfulness and humor. That playfulness is apparent lm even when the theme is potentially dark or deep. “Noggin” takes a clever and fanciful look at the evolution of he Great Flood. In “My Date from Hell,” the devil is a- man and t a genuinely nice guy. “Our main aim was to make a funny fi that the audience would enjoy,” says Tom Bracht, co-director ator of “Hell.” “Profound melancholic short anim and anim hem tions are great, but attending festivals, we always like lm to ofsee t t:papa&baby” looks at play head-on and its fi lms that make us laugh.”is mon Grundy.” lm “ToyArt The fi

importance relative to work. Ironically, the darkest fi lm’s animation direc- all is based on alm children’s points out nursery how “sometimes rhyme, “Solo life can just be a heartedness, notably Although the fi series of rituals that go by,” according to the fi ts main character as life spins him around. tor, Chris Myers,ions it still of hasi elements of light ic react the com lms “We tried to put a little bit of humor into it as well,” says Myers. lms, produced at schools and universities, have a These fi

common element of playfulness, but their unseen commonal- ity is that they required a lot of work to produce. Creating ﬁ like these is how student animators preparing to enter the workforce learn about late hours, teamwork, schedules, pipe- lines, and trial and error. For example, although it took a year and 10 months to make “Noggin,” says director Alex Cannon, were to do it again, it would probably take four months.” “if we But he concedes, “Part of doing it was learning the process.”

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Student Animations. . . .

My Date From Hell | Electronic Theater

Four years in the making and 12 minutes long, “My Date from Hell” is a fully realized narrative—a sort of mini-feature fi lm—with nine characters, detailed sets, and plenty of fi re and smoke effects (we’re talking hell, after all). The premise is simple: The devil, like anyone else, is lonely and would like to settle down with a mate. And, like anyone else, he faces some roadblocks on the way to true love. “The story was inspired by a German radio show about the devil,” says Tom Bracht, who directed and animated the fi lm along with Tim Weimann. Though the radio devil had his comic aspects, he was still bad, explains Bracht. “We wanted to change his character. We wanted our devil to be an absolutely good and nice guy.” The fi lm was an ambitious graduation project for the team of Bracht and Weimann at Filmakademie Baden Württermberg’s Institute of Animation, Visual Effects, and Digital Postproduction in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Three years before the duo even began animating, they wrote a script and storyboarded every shot. They then loaded the storyboard into Adobe’s After Effects to test the timing and montage. After modeling rough versions of sets and characters, the students created a 3D animatic that helped them determine camera moves. A third member of the team, Patrick Wachowiak, built a camera rig modeled after a physical camera so that camera moves later on would be believable. (Wachowiak also did the effects animation for the fi lm.) Avid’s Softimage 3D and Autodesk’s Maya were both used at various stages to model the characters, and Photoshop provided painted and photographed textures. Bracht then created the rigs for the movie’s three main characters and six sub-characters. He decided to generate a master rig for a lot of them, since they were all basically two-legged humanoid characters any- way, then just tweaked the rigs as necessary, as was required for The devil fares no better than mere mortals when it comes to the Wilber, the devil’s surly minion, who has wings. dating scene in the short fi lm “Hell.” The characters were modeled with an emphasis on emotional expression. Before the animation proceeded, the team also recorded all the voices for the characters in German. Later they recorded an a local Elvis impersonator who sang two songs in the movie. English dub for the fi nished version; however, because of the trans- If a couple of characters in “Hell” look familiar, it’s because lation, the English version is not always lip-synched perfectly. Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg animator Johannes Weiland, Bracht and Weimann keyframed all the character animation whose “Annie & Boo” showed in the 2005 SIGGRAPH Electronic in the fi lm, aiming for a “cartoony” style of movement, as Bracht Theater, animated several shots. Weimann, on the other hand, puts it. “We used simulations for some secondary animations, modeled one of the characters in “Annie & Boo.” So perhaps there like the jiggle of the devil’s belly, for example,” he says. “But the is a Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg style. Certainly both simulation was always just a starting point. We then baked it out fi lms have some of the same sweet whimsy and a similar inter- and tweaked the curves by hand, to exaggerate the movement.” play between a bumbling ogre type and a lovely female. Effects in the fi lm were generated by Wachowiak using Bracht says that in general he and Weimann are very satisfi ed Maya’s Fluid system for fi re, smoke, dust, and fog. Particles with their creation. If they had it to do over again, they wouldn’t were used for certain twinkling effects such as stars. change anything: “One of the reasons it took us so long to com- For music, the team used a temporary soundtrack that consisted plete the movie,” says Bracht, “was that we did do over things until of commercial songs they liked. Later in production, their producer we were satisfi ed.” As a result, he says, people appreciate the work. hooked them up with student composer Andreas Kersting, who “They say that this short fi lm has a feature-fi lm quality. They like wrote and produced the soundtrack for the fi lm. Though the stu- the moods, the settings, and the characters.” Certainly the fi lm has dents had hoped to use the Elvis Presley song Devil in Disguise for a a sense of humor, and heart. “I think you can really feel for the dancing scene, they encountered rights issues and ended up using devil in his endeavor to fi nd a girl,” says Bracht.

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. . . . Student Animations

Noggin | Electronic Theater Director Alex Cannon’s senior project at Brigham Young University in Utah began with an idea that another team had pitched the previous year, only to have it shot down. That idea concerned a hypothetical confl ict between early humans and another, hereto- fore unknown species, the belly faces, which lack heads and necks and have their faces in the middle of their bodies. “We decided to resurrect the belly-face idea,” says Cannon. “And we also wanted to attack something technical involving humans. We didn’t want to do fuzzy little animals.” The basic story involves the struggle between the prehistoric belly faces and fi lm’s sole human character, who is appealingly gangly and vulnerable. There are lots of sight gags, a bit of pathos, and a dramatic and revealing fi nal scene. Putting all those elements together was one of the hardest parts of creating the fi lm, according to Cannon. “We kind of went back and forth and side- ways narrative-wise,” he says. “A lot of people wanted to make it just funny. Others wanted it dark and quirky. I wanted it to just be itself. So it’s a mixture of things.” The team also decided to go with a series of gag vignettes—each building on the next but also capable of standing alone. The project proceeded through storyboards, scripts, and 2D animatics in Adobe’s After Effects, and from there, to modeling and animating in Autodesk’s Maya. At that juncture, says Cannon, the project spread out laterally, with people working simultaneously on modeling, rigging, testing, and so forth. He estimates that about 40 people were involved in the fi lm all told, with perhaps 12 working The director of “Noggin” created a lush, almost realistic natural on it at any one time. With all those environment (top) for his decidedly unrealistic “belly-face” people, “the hard part was try- characters (center and bottom) and human protagonist (far left). ing to get everything to work together and get the story scenery is lush, soft, and the sky grows ever darker. Rain falls told so it was coher- throughout much of the fi lm. ent,” he says. In terms of character movement, Cannon says the team was One of aiming for something a bit more realistic than that of ordinary Cannon’s goals cartoon characters, but not so realistic that they would have to in making the worry about exactitude. People have since expressed admiration fi lm was achieving a cer- for the way the characters move in “Noggin,” he relays, but there is tain illustrated type of look that no great secret to that. “We just started animating,” Cannon says. involves a hatching technique “We would get on the computer and mess with the rig and get it (for shading) on the boulders, happening. The animation part of the fi lm felt pretty natural.” the tools, and even the charac- Cannon says he is most pleased with the fi nal scene of the fi lm. ters themselves. “It’s a look we While the sequence of events was set, how to unveil them took a hadn’t seen before in 3D envi- lot of thought. “I like how we paced the ending. And it’s what we ronments,” says Cannon. spent the most time on,” he explains. Though the fi lm has been Certainly “Noggin” looks well received at fi lm festivals, Cannon says he hasn’t had time like it could have been to watch the fi lm in the company of others. “I’d really like to see drawn by a talented [others’ reactions] when it plays,” he notes. “I’m always trying children’s book illustrator: The fi gure out people’s triggers and how to pace things.”

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Student Animations. . . .

Solomon Grundy | Animation Theater Many student fi lms suffer from grand plans—it’s hard to gauge and director Natalie Moore researched the piece, coming up with what’s too elaborate before you have a few projects under your belt. many of the Victorian-era art pieces and motifs in the fi lm. But graduate students Ken Seward and Chris Myers came up with Solomon, with his baby fat and facial hair, was designed as a a simple concept for their 3D Collaborative class at The Savannah sort of man-child to refl ect the short nature of his life. Fellow student College of Art and Design—and stuck with it. Their idea was to ani- Jen-Feng Tsai modeled Solomon in Autodesk’s Maya, and before mate a nursery rhyme: “Simple and short, but open to interpreta- animation began, Seward and Myers videotaped each other acting tion,” as Seward, the art director, puts it. The fi lm is about one min- out the character’s movements to help keep the action under 10 sec- ute long, and takes place entirely on a stage, which Myers thought onds per shot. “Solomon Grundy” is keyframe animated, except would be a good way to further streamline the production. for the wheels of the pull toys and stage sets, which were done The nursery rhyme they settled on was “Solomon Grundy:” using MEL scripts. Having Solomon as a “living,” fully modeled character surrounded by fl at Solomon Grundy, characters and objects, says Born on a Monday, Seward, shows that he is a Christened on Tuesday, kind of “everyman” dumped Married on Wednesday, into a machine. Took ill on Thursday, The setting was made to Grew worse on Friday, resemble an old Victorian the- Died on Saturday, ater, right down to the light- Buried on Sunday. ing. “As best we could,” says That was the end of Seward, “we wanted to have Solomon Grundy. a warm look that might have come from the open-fl ame gas “I grew up with that nurs- lamps that such a stage might ery rhyme and always liked have had.” Though the team its gruesome but playful out- researched Victorian stages, look on life,” says Seward. the ultimate inspiration came “It’s a bit bleak, very Victorian.” from an unexpected place: In fact, both fi lmmakers the movie Lemony Snicket’s say they were inspired by Series of Unfortunate Events, another writer, author, and according to animation direc- illustrator: Edward Gorey, tor Myers. Somehow the himself inspired by things a scene in that movie in which bit bleak and Victorian. a play takes place outdoors The short fi lm “Solomon Victorian-inspired toys and stage settings provided the proper conveyed the right look and Grundy” opens with an image of ambiance for the directors’ animated short-fi lm take on the classic feel, and provided needed nursery rhyme “Solomon Grundy.” a whirring clock and placard that direction, he says. lets you know it’s Monday. Solomon, a baby with a mustache and The fi lm’s color palette had an even more unlikely source. a goatee, literally hits the stage face down. His parents and all the “Oddly enough, I was at my sister’s house, and there was this dec- other characters and objects in the movie are Victorian cardboard- orative box with an illustration of a chef on it,” says Myers. The like cutouts mounted on wheels—movable stage sets that speed warm reds of the box were just what he was looking for. “And we past Solomon in each day or phase of his life. A priest wheels past stuck with this color palette through the entire project,” he says. and christens him with a slap. A nurse pushes him round and The end result is a piece that some viewers think was made round in a wheelchair. Everything happens very quickly—no one with stop motion, which pleases Myers. “It shows that it doesn’t day’s scene lasts more than 10 seconds. There is no background matter what the medium is,” he says. Lots of viewers have never music, just a narrator intoning the rhyme, and the sounds of gears heard the nursery rhyme either, and think the fi lm’s creators and ticking clocks. The very brevity of the fi lm refl ects the brevity wrote it. That doesn’t matter either. The point, according to of life—and how both are humorous and poignant by turns. Seward, is that “Solomon is born into a world that pre-exists Since Seward and Myers had only a brief time themselves (10 him and will continue after he is gone. This was my interpreta- weeks of class) to make “Solomon Grundy,” they started brain- tion of the rhyme and how I feel about a lot of moments in life storming six weeks beforehand, creating a fairly elaborate ani- that involve formalities you never voted for. They just come at matic in Adobe’s After Effects and Photoshop. Student producer you and you are expected to go along with them.”

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| Animation Theater ToyArtist:papa&babyNoggin | Electronic Theater Color is defi nitely one of the principal characters in “ToyArtist: a hardworking inventor and toymaker along with his baby papa&baby.” In every frame, the bright yet soft primary colors son, stationed behind a lovely and impractically low fence of catch your eye. In fact, says Wooksang Chang, co-director and painted wooden tulips in the corner of the workroom. The toy- supervising producer of the fi lm, “color is a signifi cant and essen- maker is obviously a genius. He makes a cunning little robot tial storytelling tool for me. Warmth and play were key concepts dog, for example, that seems to have a life of its own. But he’s for the color collection of ‘ToyArtist.’ I chose yellow and red as the so involved in his work that he doesn’t see the simple things main colors and several supporting colors, as well.” his little son really needs, and he also fails to notice when the Of course, the seven-minute fi lm has other characters, too— baby gets into some serious trouble. Chang, an assistant professor at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, directed the fi lm along with a crew that includes his wife, Hyejin Kim, and four other students: Jaemin Lee, Younghee Choi, Donghyuk Choi, and Chigon Park. He got the idea for the fi lm during his wife’s pregnancy. “I was forced to think of myself as a future father,” he says, “a busy fi lmmaking father who does not have enough time to play with his kid.” The fi lmmaker became a toymaker for the movie and a workaholic dad; “a baby full of curiosity and various toys were all vividly there in my head,” he adds. From there, Chang was able to create sketches and sculptures of his characters before fi lmmaking commenced. After storyboards, the modeling and animation were done in Autodesk’s Maya, and the cloth simulation with Qualoth software from FXGear. Animating clothing proved to be one of the toughest parts of making “ToyArtist,” says Chang. When he wasn’t satisfi ed with the wrinkling of the pants and shirt, Chang worked with Dr. Kwangjin Choi, the developer of Qualoth, to upgrade the program. “Qualoth enabled us to achieve a very accurate simulation effect,” says Chang. When it came to animating the characters, Park worked on the father and the toys, and Kim on the baby. The baby’s reactions and facial expressions in the fi lm will seem very realistic to anyone who has ever spent time with an infant, and are among the major tech- nological achievements of the movie. “Animating the baby was one of our most diffi cult jobs,” says Chang. “We are not babies, so obviously no one can act out the role quite correctly. Therefore, we had to rely on vid- eos and, of course, our imagination.” Also, the team learned some interesting facts, such as how babies fall because their sense of center of gravity is still developing, and how their emotions change extremely rapidly. Chang says that no particular part of the fi lm stands out as a favorite: “Every single part of the work was precious and meaningful to me.” Not as precious as his young son, however: He had to cut short his CGW inter- view to go play with him. The simple but expressive characters in “ToyArtist:papa&baby” play nearly secondary roles to the fi lm’s rich color palette, itself a part of the story, according to the budding director. Jenny Donelan is a contributing editor for Computer Graphics

World. She can be reached at [email protected].

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p to 35% d save u ! an passes www.gdconf.comuary 31, 2007 ference r by Jan on con Registe SIONS! ESE SES TTH evable OU ent Beli HECK –Intellig C rmance letic Perfo Ath rs haracte ossible C AL ARTS TRACKe best p ments aining th ame to stand HENRY LABOUNTA & ERIC ARMSTRONG,nviron ELECTRONIC ARTS CANADA ply att allow a g door E THE VISU rom sim les that sses to ef Out ural ing f d art sty rmat cla High-D roced me art is shift deas an longer fo ools with P us of ga ring new i rovides atest t ames The foc o explo s track p ugh the l MICHAEL KHAIMZON, CRYTEKving G uality t sual Art ep thro ce: Li uction q . The Vi ep-by-st peciﬁc practical ro Spa prod petition dees st de the s in Ze the com tten to provi ctions. 4D out from ime to walk a ontained ew dire res kers the t elf-c me art in n Textu World ow spea lass will be s ake ga S Open all . Each c that will t SEBASTIEN DEGUY, ALLEGORITHMICS ROW’ hniques hniques SAINT’ and tec ed tec ation of ge of advanc he Cre r knowled T pe: Stilwate Citysca JASON HAYES & KENNY THOMPSON, VOLITION, INC.

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Clockwise from left: Professional digital artist Greg Vilk believes in the marriage of high-end CG and fi ne art. He The Leper from Calidon This image was inspired by Calidon, a unites the two in his work visually and methodically, creating his own shaders and graphics net- Greek island that was the site of the last leper colony in Europe. It works to create a specifi c look, just as the old masters mixed their own paints, and using crowd was the artist’s fi rst attempt to simulate the look of a medieval oil painting on a wooden panel. systems and terrain generators for background imagery, just as apprentices handled the more Lord of the Flies The distant terrain in this piece of a demonic mundane aspects of painting for a master. centaur on the prowl was modeled with G-forge, an older terrain- A TD in the fi lm industry, Vilk learned technical and programming skills at studios including generation tool. PDI/DreamWorks and Digital Domain. Technically, fi lm work has taught Vilk how to make a 2K Notre Dame de Industrie To create this image of a futuristic oil refi nery looming large like a cathedral, Vilk used procedural image hold up in terms of detail and realism, for instance. Lately though, he has been devoting displacement for the surface detail. more of his time to digital painting, which he fi nds more stimulating than the fi lm work. Style-wise, Vilk’s biggest infl uences are from the Northern European Gothic painters

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Bosch, Grunwald, Durer, and Beksinksi. “I call my style ‘digital Gothic’,” he says. To this end, Vilk Clockwise from top: contrasts the fantastic, modern subject matter of his pieces with their aged, weathered appear- Ferox The Freudian “id” is a primeval malice buried deep in the ﬂ esh, a concept depicted here using a procedural 2D stamping process for ance (akin to medieval paintings). “They’re meant to look like artifacts left by an imaginary creating the tangled, organic shapes. alien culture that combined advanced technology with the mentality similar to our Dark Ages.” The Host of the Iron King This piece evolved from an illustration To accomplish that weathered appearance, the artist creates custom shaders and composit- Vilk created for a sci-ﬁ concept of a nomad nation that follows its leader across deserts to the Promised Land; the leader is a mechanical ing networks set up within Side Effects Software’s Houdini. These include a brush stroke shader colossus constructed ages ago by a mysterious artisan. Here, the that enables him to procedurally re-create the look of strokes applied by a human painter, and calvary was crafted using a crowd generator. an L-System-based network that covers his art with a pattern of cracks, stains, and grime. Paradise Lost Inspired by the common gravestone motif of a weeping A sampling of Vilk’s works appears on these pages. For more information about Vilk, angel, the artist crafted this image using a custom paintbrush shader for the character’s tunic, simulating the brush strokes of a human visit www.darkheaven.com. —Karen Moltenbrey painter, as opposed to the random strokes offered by various plug-ins.

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SOFTWARE control, an updated SPi-V3D viewer based HARDWARE on Shockwave, and the ability to export to Autodesk Maya. VTour is available at a cost SHADING AND LIGHTING of $580. GRAPHICS CARD RealViz; www.realviz.com Enter AIR Space Nvidia’s Newest Win SiTex Graphics, maker of the AIR ren- VIDEO Nvidia has unveiled its GeForce 8800 graph- dering software, has released AIR Space, a ics processing unit (GPU) and nForce 680i SLI stand-alone software tool for shading and 50 More FX media and communications processor (MCP), lighting 3D models to be rendered with AIR. Win • Mac Boris FX has upgraded its Boris both designed for high-resolution, high-per- AIR Space aids users in importing 3D mod- FX 2D and 3D compositing and effects plug-in formance gaming, and high-defi nition visuals. els, assigning shading and lighting properties, for industry-standard nonlinear editing (NLE) The GeForce 8800 GTX supports Microsoft and viewing and making modifi cations in an systems. Boris FX 9.0 boasts more than 50 new DirectX 10, the next-generation program- Interactive Preview Rendering of the scene fi lters, a revamped user interface design, and ming interface to be introduced with the provided by TweakAIR. An interactive ver- Microsoft Vista operating system. The new sion of AIR, TweakAIR displays soft shadows, graphics card also boasts a unifi ed shader refl ections, procedural patterns, anti-aliased architecture with up to 128 parallel 1.35GHz textures, global illumination, and ambient processors, simultaneous 16x anti-aliasing, occlusion. AIR Space features unlimited undo 128-bit high dynamic range lighting, and Nvidia Quantum Effects physics processing and redo of shading and lighting adjust- a new library of browser templates. Version technology. Nvidia’s nForce 680i SLI-based ments, as well as supports other 3D and 2D 9.0 provides support for Apple’s PowerPC and MCP was designed specifi cally for Intel’s new programs. Additional features include an Intel-based Macintosh computers, 16-bit color, Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo processors. integrated asset browser, an OpenGL view- and Canopus Edius 4, Sony Vegas 7, and all The new MCP offers support for Nvidia SLI port, and support for distributed rendering Avid NLEs. Boris FX 9.0 is now available at a multi-GPU technology and SLI-ready memory across multiple computers. cost of $299, or as an upgrade for $199. SiTex Graphics; www.sitexgraphics.com Boris FX; www.borisfx.com

3D ENVIRONMENTS MODELING/ANIMATION

New VTour Version Easy Animation Win • Mac RealViz is shipping its latest Win • Mac Braid Art Labs announced Gro- software, VTour, on the Macintosh platform. Boto, 3D art and animation software for VTour assists users in creating photorealistic novices or professionals wanting to create 3D environments from digital photographs complex, dynamic, lyrical forms and anima- or 360-degree panoramas, such as those tion easily. This is accomplished by combin- DIMMS, dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, and a developed in RealViz Stitcher. VTour is useful ing artistic expression with interactive explo- third PCIe graphics slot. Nvidia is now deliver- for 3D simulation, virtual walk-throughs, vir- ration of 3D form and motion. The software ing the GeForce 8800 GTX and nForce 680i. tual reality, computer games, urban planning, features intelligent, algorithmic drawing tools, Nvidia; www.nvidia.com and virtual sets for ﬁ lm and television. VTour called Bots, that create unique geometric employs polygonal photo-textured prim- forms ranging from organic, to abstract, to WORKSTATIONS itives to create 3D scenes, which can then architectural. A kinetic morphing animation be exported as a 3D movie, geo-referenced system produces ﬂ uid motion automatically Inside Alienware 3D scenes for Google Earth, or an interac- based on a few Bot keyframes. The product Alienware is infusing its high-end Area-51 tive application. Version 1.1 offers lossless is available now for $79. 7500, Aurora 7500, and ALX desktop systems compression, texture compression quality Braid Art Labs; www.braid.com with new Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX graphics

42 | Computer Graphics World JANUARY 2007 ______www.cgw.com

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PAINTING SYSTEM

Blending Traditional and Digital NEWS Win Light Strokes’ OptiPaint system is reportedly the fi rst product to enable artists Adobe Wins Emmy to use traditional paint brushes and painting for Flash Video tools with today’s computer graphics soft- Adobe Systems has won a Technical and ware. The solution includes optical and elec- Engineering Emmy Award from the National tronic hardware and plug-in software com- Academy of Television Arts and Sciences patible with Adobe Photoshop and other for its Flash Video technology. Adobe Flash processing units (GPU) in single or dual-GPU paint programs. Called a combination of high- software was recognized as having a piv- mode. The industry’s fi rst GPU to be fully tech and high-touch mediums, OptiPaint rec- otal role in bringing television content to the compliant with next-generation DirectX 10 ognizes changing shapes and textures as Internet. The award for Streaming Media games and applications, the GeForce 8800 tools, including fi ngers and hands for all-digi- Architecture & Components will be formally GTX takes advantage of Nvidia SLI technol- tal fi nger painting, which are applied to the delivered to Adobe at a ceremony during ogy, which enables up to double the gam- system’s surface. the 2007 International Consumer Electronics ing power of a single-GPU confi guration. Light Strokes; www.optipaint.com Show (CES), which will take place in Las Alienware’s desktops also benefi t from the Vegas this month. Television shows—such card’s advanced unifi ed shader architecture, VIDEO as Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Grey’s high-speed memory interface, two dual-link Anatomy—are being delivered online with DVI outputs, and Nvidia nForce 680i SLI- Encoding with NCode the help of Flash Video, which also fuels the based motherboard in an SLI confi guration. Bluefi sh444 is shipping the Bluefi sh444 Rage video capabilities of sites such as YouTube Alienware is now accepting customer orders NCode real-time encoding HD MPEG-2 video and MySpace. Flash Video is delivered via on its Web site for systems integrating the compression system. For use with all HD video Adobe Flash Player, which is installed on Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX. resolutions, Rage NCode is well suited to such more than 700 million Internet-connected Alienware; www.alienware.com applications as digital content creation, post- desktops and mobile devices to date.

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www.cgw.com______JANUARY 2007 Computer Graphics World | 43

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STOCK OPTIONS

Southwest Flavor Artbeats has unveiled Ground Rush 3—Southwest, the newest addition to the company’s ground rush stock footage series. Shot with the HD Gyron camera for high stabil- ity and resolution, Ground Rush 3 offers imagery of the Painted Desert, red rock monoliths, mesas, cliffs, rocky buttes, and desert production, live streaming, HD archival, multi- plains of the scenic Southwest. For broadcast, feature fi lms, com- channel SD compressed ingest, and HD-DVD/ mercials, multimedia designs, games, and independent produc- Blu-ray authoring. The new Rage NCode sys- tions, Ground Rush 3—Southwest is available in HD-1920x1080, tem, based on the Bluefi sh444 HD-Fury single- D1 NTSC-720x486, and D1 PAL-720x576 resolutions. Pricing for link HD/SD SDI I/O card, includes the compa- Artbeats’ HD collections range from $799 to $899, whereas stan- ny’s Symmetry software for acquisition, review, dard-defi nition releases are priced between $229 and $699. and playback, as well as Aspex’s Accelara HD Artbeats; www.artbeats.com MPEG-2 Encoder PCI-X card. Bluefi sh444 Rage NCode is software-programmable and able to ingest from live, uncompressed sources, such as HD/SD cameras and tape decks. It also provides real-time HD MPEG-2 encoding, multi- dard analog VGA monitor cable to provide HOST ADAPTER channel real-time SD MPEG-2 encoding, and multi-monitor support. DCC professionals can support for Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, Autodesk create a Surround Design experience in which SATA Solution by Sonnet Cleaner XL, Sony Vegas, Adobe Encore 2.0, multiple views of a design can be examined or Sonnet Technologies has introduced a and Sonic DVDit. The Bluefi sh444 Rage multiple applications can be displayed simul- new model in its line of Serial ATA (SATA) NCode system is priced at $14,990. taneously. Priced at $299, TripleHead2Go is host adapters. The Tempo host adapter for Bluefi sh444; www.bluefi sh444.com compatible with Windows 2000 and XP oper- ExpressCard/34, designed for laptop computers, includes two external 300MB/sec SATA DISPLAYS ports. The new controller also features two external 3GB/sec SATA II ports, support for Tripling Display Space up to 10 disk drives, and compatibility with Matrox Graphics’ TripleHead2Go is a palm- Apple MacBook Pro 15- and 17-inch laptops sized piece of hardware that stretches the and any Windows notebook computer with Windows desktop, with a resolution of up an ExpressCard 54 or ExpressCard 34 slot. For to 3840x1024 pixels, across three displays, ating systems and desktop and laptop PCs use with Windows XP and Mac OS X RAID each with full acceleration. TripleHead2Go is equipped with certain Nvidia and ATI graphics 0, 1, and 10, the Tempo SATA host adapter is a Graphics Expansion Module (GXM), exter- chipsets and add-in boards. priced at $129.95. nal boxes that connect a computer via a stan- Matrox Graphics; www.matrox.com/graphics Sonnet Technologies; www.sonnettech.com

January 2007, Volume 30, Number 1: COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD (USPS 665-250) (ISSN-0271-4159) is published monthly (12 issues) by COP Communications, Inc. Corporate offi ces: 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, CA 91204, Tel: 818-291-1100; FAX: 818-291-1190; Web Address: [email protected]. Periodicals postage paid at Glendale, CA, 91205 & additional mailing offi ces. COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD is distributed worldwide. Annual subscription prices are $55, USA; $75, Canada & Mexico; $115 International airfreight. To order subscriptions, call 847-559-7310. © 2007 CGW by COP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without permission. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specifi c clients, is granted by Computer Graphics World, ISSN-0271-4159, provided that the appropriate fee is paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 USA 508-750-8400. Prior to photocopying items for educational classroom use, please contact Copyright Clearance Center Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 USA 508-750-8400. For further information check Copyright Clearance Center Inc. online at: www.copyright.com. The COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD fee code for users of the Transactional Reporting Services is 0271-4159/96 $1.00 + .35. POSTMASTER: Send change of address form to COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD, P.O. Box 3296, Northbrook, IL 60065-3296.

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GEARBOX CREATES THE SOFTWARE. DELL BRINGS IT TO LIFE.

Dell™ recommends Windows® XP Professional Dell 19" 1907 Flat Panel Display, add $309 GEARBOX APPROACHED US WITH A PROBLEM. They were a game studio looking for a leg up on the competition. They needed an edge. And they got it, with a little help from Dell and Adobe. We gave them options like Dell Precision™ Workstations, high- performing systems equipped with Intel Quad Core Processors that provide the power necessary for multi-threaded multimedia applications and customizable with advanced graphics, RAID hard drive support, and dual monitor capability. And through our partnership with Adobe, Gearbox could get the powerful Adobe OpenHD certiﬁ ed HDV solution featuring the comprehensive post-production tools of Adobe Production Studio. That meant access to the exceptional quality and resolution of HD at an affordable price. Which also meant that with their technology problems solved, Gearbox was free DELL PRECISION™ M90 to churn out original blockbusters like 2005’s Brothers In Arms: Earned in Blood. Small MOBILE WORKSTATION business solutions designed for one company in mind. Yours. starting at $ 2469 NEW DELL PRECISION™ 490 WORKSTATION AdobeProduction starting at $ Studio Standard 3749 Software, documentation or packaging may vary from retail version.

Dell™ recommends Adobe® software with Dell Precision™ Workstations.

Adobe® Production Studio Standard Adobe® Production Studio Premium Adobe offers the essential post-production toolset. Adobe offers a complete post-production solution.

• Package includes: Adobe $ • Package includes: Adobe After Effects® 7.0 Professional, Adobe Premiere® Pro 2.0, After Effects® 7.0 Standard, Special Offer! Save 400 OFF MSRP ® ® ® Adobe Premiere® Pro 2.0 and when purchased with select Dell Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Audition 2.0, Adobe Encore DVD 2.0 and Adobe ® ® Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe ™ Illustrator CS2 software, Adobe Dynamic Link and Adobe Bridge. Call for Dell Pricing. Dynamic Link and Adobe Bridge. Precision Workstations*!

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Call: M-F 7a-8p Sat 8a-5p, CT *Pricing/Availability: Pricing, speciﬁ cations, availability, and terms of offer may change without notice. Taxes, fees, shipping, handling and any applicable restocking charges extra, vary and are not subject to discount. Offers may be combined with other select offers or discounts. U.S. Dell Small Business new purchases only. LIMIT 5 DISCOUNTED OR PROMOTIONAL ITEMS PER CUSTOMER. In case of customers leasing under these promotions, please note that items leased will be subject to applicable end-of-lease options or requirements. Dell cannot be responsible for pricing or other errors, and reserves the right to cancel orders arising from such errors. Adobe Production Studio Standard Offer: Offer valid only with purchase of Dell Precision™ 380, 390, 490, 690, M65, M90. Trademark/Copyright Notices: Dell, the stylized E logo, E-Value, UltraSharp, CompleteCare and Dell Precision are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside, Intel Inside logo, Xeon, Xeon Inside, Intel Core, Core Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Adobe, the Adobe Logo and Acrobat are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. ©2006-2007 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

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