Romantic Rendering: Romanticism in Visual Stylization And Story Conception in 3D Animation A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Drexel University by Simon Mason Littlejohn In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Digital Media April 10, 2012 © Copyright 2012 Simon M. Littlejohn. All Rights Reserved i DEDICATIONS This thesis is dedicated to my mother and father, Kim and John. Without their endless support, constant encouragement, and infinite patience this thesis would not have been possible. Their wisdom and guidance is a gift I will never take for granted. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like thank my committee members, for providing insight and guidance during the creation of my thesis. Thank you to Christopher Redmann for helping me with shader writing, and for honing the direction this thesis took. Thank you to Dr. Charles Morscheck for the countless hours it must have taken to help edit and refine both this paper, and my thesis as a whole. Thank you to Nick Jushchyshyn for joining my committee without hesitation, and for helping strengthen my animation at short notice. I would also like to thank my friends and fellow graduate students Dan Bodenstein, Greg Ruane, Nate Shaw, and Bob Piscopo. Their frequent critiques and positive input have made this thesis stronger. I would like to also thank those who have graduated before me, including Evan Boucher, Nick Avallone, David Lally, and Tom Bergamini. The learning environment they facilitated has been an inspiration, and their experience and insight have bettered my academic experience. Lastly, I would like to thank my advisor Dave Mauriello, whose support went above and beyond his calling. His deep understanding of the field has proven invaluable to this thesis, and his professionalism has helped me both academically and personally. I am truly grateful to have had him as an advisor, and an instructor as well. I owe him for a vast majority of what I know about CG today. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................... iv DEFINITION OF TERMS .................................................................................................................... viii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................. x 1. INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................... 1 2. RELEVANT RESEARCH .................................................................................................................... 6 3. PROCEDURE ...................................................................................................................................... 41 3.1 LAYERED TEXTURES ............................................................................................................. 41 3.2 ZBRUSH ....................................................................................................................................... 47 3.3 CAMERA PROJECTION ........................................................................................................... 55 3.4 MULTIPLE ARRAYS OF TEXTURES ................................................................................... 61 3.5 EDGE BLURRING ...................................................................................................................... 63 3.6 FROM MAYA TO HOUDINI.................................................................................................... 73 3.7 THE SHADER ............................................................................................................................. 76 3.8 TRADITIONAL RENDERING ................................................................................................ 78 4. LIMITATIONS AND POTENTIAL EXPANSION ...................................................................... 82 4.1 THE SHADER ............................................................................................................................. 82 4.2 HOUDINI VOP SOP ................................................................................................................... 85 4.3 MATTE PAINTING ................................................................................................................... 87 4.4 MISCELLANEOUS ..................................................................................................................... 88 5. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 90 LIST OF REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 92 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................................... 94 iv LIST OF FIGURES Fig 1: Caspar David Friedrich Ruins of Eldena, 1824-2 ............................................................ 2 Fig 2: Rembrandt’s St. Peter in Prison, 1631 ............................................................................... 8 Fig 3: Tintorreto’s Pieta, 1559. ....................................................................................................... 10 Fig 4: Raphael’s School of Athens, 1510-11.. .............................................................................. 11 Fig 5: William Turner’s Slave Ship, 1840. .................................................................................. 12 Fig 6: William Turner’s Shipwreck of the Minotaur, 1810 .................................................... 13 Fig 7-8: Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819-1823, The Colossus, 1808-1812....... 14 Fig 9: Peter Paul Ruben’s Saturn Devouring His Children, 1636-1638 ............................ 15 Fig 10-11: John Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath, 1853, and The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 1852. ............................................................................................................ 17 Fig 12: A still from Pixar’s Partly Cloudy, showing the mix of photo/non- photorealism ......................................................................................................................................... 18 Fig 13-14: Henry Fuseli’s Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers, 1812, and The Three Witches, 1783. ....................................................................................................................................... 19 Fig 15-16: Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818, and The Sea of Ice, 1823-24. .............................................................................................................................. 20 Fig 17-18: Examples of cell shading in real time rendering as demonstrated by The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (Gamecube), and Jet Grind Radio (Xbox)……………….... 21 Fig 19-20: Diego Velasquez’s Infanta Margareta, 1655, and Bronzio’s Eleanor of Toledo, 1540-1541. ............................................................................................................................. 23 v Fig 21: Francisco Goya’s Yard with Lunatics, 1793-94. ......................................................... 24 Fig 22: Johannes Vermeer’s Painter with Model, 1673. ......................................................... 25 Fig 23: Palma Vecchio’s Adam and Eve, 1512 ........................................................................... 26 Fig 24: Delacroix’s La Mort de Sardanapale, 1827 .................................................................. 27 Fig 25: Peter Paul Ruben’s The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1628. .......... 28 Fig 26: Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors, 1533 ...................................................................... 29 Fig 27: Hans Gude’s Fra Hardanger, 1847 ................................................................................. 30 Fig 28: Rembrandt’s Night Watch, 1642 ..................................................................................... 31 Fig 29-30: Titian’s Venus of Urbino, 1538, and Velasquez’s Venus at her Mirror, 1649- 51. .............................................................................................................................................................. 32 Fig 31: Francisco Goya’s El Tres de Mayo, 1814. ...................................................................... 33 Fig 32: Emanuel de Witte’s Interior of a Protestant Gothic Church, 1669. ..................... 34 Fig 33: Eugene Delacroix’s La Liberte Guidant le people, 1830 .......................................... 34 Fig 34: David Fincher’s Se7en, 1995 ............................................................................................. 36 Fig 35: AMC’s The Walking Dead, 2010-Current. Protagonist Rick aiming at zombies ..................................................................................................................................................................... 37 Fig 36-37: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, 1958, and Psycho, 1960. ....................................... 38 Fig 38: Gore Verbinski’s Rango, 2011. A Romantic landscape that is a character in and of itself ............................................................................................................................................. 39 Fig 39-40: Gore Verbinski’s