Molecular Camera Catches DNA Replication In Process
Ok, not really. No cameras that powerful, so Drew Berry had to use what we know about DNA in order to recreate the process in 3D. Back in 2003 I had seen a talk with Drew Berry and he had primarily used Maya to make the animations. I wonder if he’s moved on and is now using more appropriate tools for this kind of work.
Another reason not to stress too much about things. Think about what happens to traditional system “stress tests”. Imagine what kinds of chaos it wreaks on these little guys.
Voxels at Siggraph 2011
Real quick, I wanted to point out the many recent uses of voxels demonstrated at Siggraph. I can’t help it, but I get pretty excited every time I hear about voxels. Even the developer at Atomontage states that we need a voxel “revolution”, and I couldn’t agree more.
Apparently Blue Sky’s “Rio” used Voxels for terrain and the rendering of large crowds. I hope the talk is released soon so I can see the details, first hand.
I was made aware of a game engine called Atomontage, which uses voxels [thx Ruslan]. In the video below, you can see the potentials of (for example) truly destructible terrain, as the user unearths rocks from the sand or strips the plaster from the walls, revealing the bricks underneath.
SideFx’s release of Houdini 11.1 allows for the integration with Sony Imagework’s open source project, “Field3D“, a format for working with 3D voxel data.
Scattering Ray-Projected Metaballs
Why I love this program. I cannot remember the last time, if ever, I made a mistake in a 3D application and got usable results. However, in Houdini, it happens almost daily.
I cannot look back and cannot image even trying. Sorry.
Playing in 3D
“Playing”? Did I really just say “PLAYING”? It must have been due to the time I had off today. Working on legal stuff (wee), therefore I was away from the PC for most of the day. After completing my errands, I sat down at my desktop machine, booted up Linux and started playing around with 3D Coat. It’s similar to ZBrush, in that you can use a drawing tablet to sculpt 3D geometry. BUT, there’s a key difference. This uses voxels. That means that you can literally scupt like clay. There are non usual polygon limitations. When you’re done, it’s got plenty of simple retopologizing tools. Seriously, this has been heaven.
I was curious to see what others have done with the tool. Like myself, people don’t taste it and just walk away, they dive in! This has created a full on 3D sculpting addict out of us. For example, while looking at this thread, I thought, “Yeah, this is neat and that’s ok.” But then I saw the image below and had to take a step back. It doesn’t feel like your classic ZBrush results. The results from 3D Coat seem to have a more dynamic feel.
Then there’s Ondrej Svadlena, who is praising 3D Coat with, “the voxel sculpting and quadrangulation saved me a lot of time and made things possible that I would probably have never achieved with any other software!” Looking at the images from his short, “Mrdrchain”, I can see what he means. I hope I remember to check back in to see the completed short. In the meantime, you can watch his bizarre short, “Sanitkasan“.
3D Coat doesn’t just sculpt. This voxel stuff is actually relatively new to the package. Apparently it’s primarily used for texturing. Brett Simms has some stunning results in the forums.
While tooling around, I discovered some people using Silo to model, then bringing the resulting models into 3D Coat. Silo? Whassat? That will probably end up in it’s own entry one day. So many products out there that I’ve not been aware of.
Dragonlance Chronicles
Donating a copy of the Dragonlance Chronicles to our studio library. In my search for images, I discovered that the first book was made into an animated movie, back in 2007. Can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it.
Eric Goldberg – Disney Animator
Eric Goldberg directed 2 shorts in Fantasia 2000. He animated the Genie in Aladdin. He’s currently animating on the upcoming “The Princess and the Frog“. He is also author of the Animation Crash Course. What else? His credit list is huge, look it up.
Although it came out last year, I just listened to Part 2 of Goldberg’s podcast interview. Many animators would say that this stuff is common knowledge, but as a technical 3D guy who doesn’t deal with this kinda stuff on a daily basis, it helps to hear it from someone with such experience. What are some of the bits I’ve learned?
- About how, in 2D, you can capture the feeling before you have to worry about the anatomy. The importance of gestures, again, rears it’s head. Capturing this in 3D is a bit tricky sometimes. Another reason to pick up pencil once in awhile and/or work on a 3D solution to simulate this. ;)
- In regards to FX or secondary animation, in 3D, with everything we get for free, we loose control over key story telling elements. He gives the example of the fur in Monsters Inc. It’s all controlled dynamically, but if it’s dynamic, we cannot use the fur as a tool for enhancing the movement, or even the emotion.
- He notices how rigs are usually animated via the torso first, and how this makes CG walk-cycles feel very floaty and difficult to feel the energy.
- He sometimes approaches his animations from the eyes outwards, drawing the eyes first, then the nose, then the cranium around the eyes. The expression builds the shape.
If you want to hear about Goldberg’s recollection of animating Robin Williams as the Genie, or directing Pocahontas, check out the podcast over at AnimationPodcast.com. I’ll have to go back and listen to Part 1, as I’m sure there’s great stuff there also.
Finally, I have to include a link to a clip from the Magic Lamp Theater @ Disney Sea in Japan. I had the pleasure of working with Teunis de Raat, who worked with Goldberg in order to make this 3D version of the Genie come to life. That must have been one hell of an experience. Maybe I can convince him to divulge some details.
Rigging Wizard – Masaki Togashi
Claus, a very talented and technical animator friend of mine and I were talking of the recent events in the company. We were talking about some key things that can really set most rigs apart from the standard. This includes custom icons (locators) instead of just NURBS curves, or broken hierarchies which make it easier to post character silhouettes to camera.
He told me that his favorite rigger was a Masaki Togashi. I looked him up and apparently he was the sole rigger on Ghost in the Shell 2. I guess the guy really knew his stuff, though other riggers found him difficult to work with. A “my way or the highway” approach. In his defense, I can understand what it’s like what you try and go outside the normal boundaries in order to make innovations. Hope to meet the guy one day.
