Woo!
Here's a story run by NPR regarding the release:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4669175
When Rob the character TD is talking about Alex being tucked in a ball, he's describing my shot.
Double Woo!
Woo!
Here's a story run by NPR regarding the release:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4669175
When Rob the character TD is talking about Alex being tucked in a ball, he's describing my shot.
Double Woo!
Hi,
Before Mad, I worked on Shrek 2, as did all the rest of us here at PDI. I don't have a 2D background, but a lot of the guys do.
Thanks,
K
That's cool. What characters did you do on Shrek 2?
Spoooze!
I know---it just isn't my thing. Each to his own, I guess.
--Konan--
Hi Jason, welcome to AWN! Next time you're 'up norf' drop me a line.
Mmmmm. The Wallace & Gromit movie is going to be so good. Woo!
Um, sure! I started at PDI at the end of the film, and had only just finished training when I was put on the fairy godmother's factory sequence. Myself and my good pal Jason S-G (amazing former Aardman animator) had to do all of those little guys wandering around in the establishing shots.
In addition, I also animated Shrek as he grabs one of the little guys, dons his mask and begins his walk across through the factory.
I animated Puss for the DVD menus, and Donkey in something or other, (I forget what).
Wow, I didn't know you were Welsh. Glad to know we're still in big numbers =)
That's priceless. I half wish you would've found something!
Yup, I think we've officially made it to the endangered species list.
Off topic, I know, but I was most disappointed to see Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" eschew the book's Welsh setting in favour of the now-customary Alpine landscape.
Oh well...
Hey Jason.Scott,
what do you do at Dreamworks?
I finally saw it. Visually it looked great. I liked the snappier timing of the characters. I loved the Penguins the best, but then I'm a sucker for penguins. I think the timing worked the best on them. Sometimes it was hard to track Melman when he would whip around the screen, esspecially with his long neck. It was great to see Craig Kellmans designs come to life on the big screen. You guys and gals did an excellent job of making such stylized characters move in 3D. I think this was a big step forward for 3D animation.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
You mean.....All hail, the DreamWorks giants!
Cool! I'm glad you all liked it. I hope the design sensibilities of 'Madagascar' will push the envelope and encourage future productions to try different things. 'Mirrormask' looks promising in this respect, although I don't think it's solely animated, rather a blend of effects and live action.
I'm a trainer, teaching new artists to the studio, specializing in lighting, surfacing/texturing, compositing, and rendering. My background is more from visual effects, but it's good to work for a feature animation company.
I have just watched a "E" Preview of "madagascar",love the characters :D
That's cool.
Just call me Curious but is it true that rendering can be a big pain in the butt? I heard that sometimes it can take HOURS to render 1 frame....
Spoooze!
I believe that we've had a few shots where the rendering took just over a DAY for each FRAME.
Nice!
Though, other frames were likely being rendered? I can imagine if a whole farm did one frame, it'd be quicker -- but then the time balances because you have to wait for each frame to go one-by-one vs. multitasking.
Well, usually you don't actually render an entire frame all at once. You render layers (also called passes). So you may render a background sky layer, a background tree layer, a foreground tree layer, a layer for each character, etc. Then, if you need to change something, say, for a single character, you only have to re-render that character, instead of the entire frame. You save a TON of time, and then all you have to do is composite the layers together in the end.
So, the total time may be over a day, but re-rendering takes much shorter time. Although, for Madagascar, with all the trees and water, I wouldn't be surprised if one of those layers took more than a day . . . very complex shots. I'll have to go back and see if I can find out. We'll probably be discussing it at this year's SIGGRAPH in August.
I was bunching in the multiple passes inclusively into one frame. Or are you saying they'll do a single pass for a whole shot, or the whole film, and then go to the second, etc. and build the movie's frames like that?
Kevan I heard the also added some kind of squash and stretch to the character modules. How exactly did this work? Were you free to just pull and squash the character to a certain point or what?
Spoooze!
Yes, the characters were really versatile in that respect. They could be smoodged into the ground and then stretched super far, and all without breaking. We needed to be able to do that when smearing between poses, and I think it all turned out pretty well.
I'm glad little devices that traditionals use like smear distortion are creeping their way in. You mentioning that before on the board gave me a great "in" to explain more about the animation world to a relative of mine.
Hey Kevan, I saw Madagascar yesterday! It was really fun! I love Alex and the Lemurs! How was working on it? I read an article on awn about the squash and stretch controls for the rigs. I bet you guys had a great time!:D
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
The work in this movie is top notch.
Cool! I think as animators CG people have always wanted to do this stuff, but it's not been possible thus far. Hooray for the march of technology!
I'd still like to push it further though, so we've still got a little way to go before we've caught up with those pencil whizzes.
That's awsome. So basically you had a virtual rubber puppet that could be squashed ect.
Madagascar used Maya for animation right?
lol sorry, I'm young, interested in animation, and have a lot of questions.
Spoooze!
I'm going to try and get off my lazy arse and go see this today. The penguins look like they will be the best part of the movie. :D
Haha. No worries. If you've got any more questions, keep 'em coming.
I don't know too much about the workings of the rig, but I would think that there a lots of deformers acting on the model to keep the integrity of the geometry intact when things get EXTREME. Sorry, I can't give you a better answer. We use proprietary software and I don't know much about what goes on underneath the bonnet, apart from these vague suppositions. I probably couldn't say even if I did. : )
In any case, the toolset is very good for animation, and I certainly prefer it to good ol' Maya.
Well, first of all, animation (and visual effects for matter) focus specifically on each shot individually. Similar shots are grouped together, and sequences even share a lot of information, but it still comes down to the fact that each shot requires its own tweaking.
Having said that, layers/passes are done for each shot (I think this is what you're asking about--if it's not, go ahead and clarify, and I'll reply again). Similar shots will have the same number of passes, but each layer is rendered for all of its frames in a shot. So, for a 48-frame shot, you'll have 48 frames for the background, 48 frames per character, etc.
I'm glad you all liked it. We were encouraged by the directors to really push the characters as far as we could. The rigs held up very well, particularly when you step through the shots and see just how enthusiastic everyone got. : )
A thing I used a lot was the smear shape. Zipping between poses in a few frames and working the inbetween to connect the two keys. This is the first time I've been able to do this with a CG character, and it suited the Mad style very well. I guess this will become apparent when you guys frame advance through the DVD...
Okay cool.
What is Dreamwork's next movie? Is it supposed to use the same technique (squash and stretch stuff) again?
Spoooze!
I can't remember if the next CG movie is "Flushed Away" or "Over The Hedge". They will employ the same techniques to a certain extent, I would have thought, but probably not to the same degree as "Mad", due to differences in style.
Do you render all the layers togeather once you are ready to finish the frame?
Yes, you render all the layers together in a compositing program. The concept is actually the same as traditional animation (on cels): a layer for the background (usually just a single piece of art), cels for characters, etc. Walt Disney won an Oscar in 1938 for designing the multi-plane camera that allowed to put all the cels together into a composite image (you can still see the camera at the Disney Studios and I think at Disneyland). The concept had been used before Disney, but his camera just made it all work a bit better. Just goes to show still how much 3D computer animation draws on traditional animation techniques and ideas . . .
. . . and that completes your Animation History Lecture of the day . . . ;-)
Reading The Illusion of Life is a good way to brush up on that camera. I'd heard about it before but not in any detail. The last time I lived remotely near Anaheim I was a Scatlet.
I can understand if the background was stationary how that'd be a good idea, but for a pan, the background is changing in every frame. They don't still render it out wholly, correct? It should just rely on alpha channels or a similar device? As in render the bg except for the silhouette of the character/props? If you're allowed to say. I know genius idea or good common sense, some studios would prefer their working methods stay undisclosed.
Well, generally in CG, yes, the background is rendered for each frame. These days almost every shot has *some* sort of camera movement, so each frame would be different.
However, in traditional animation, sometimes they create the background on a much larger canvas than the actual cels. Then, when they could simulate a camera move by moving the background around, but still keeping the same piece of art (think of the background buildings in Akira or any anime film--Japanese animators are very creative in saving time and effort but still achieving dynamic movement in their shots). This is done occasionally in CG (matte paintings, essentially), but not as often, and using slightly different techniques (I think I see it more often in visual effects as opposed to feature animation).
As for alpha channels, etc., you don't need to render layers with cutouts/silhouettes generally. The characters will be fine just dropping on top (because they'll be the ones with the necessary alphas).
As for studio methods, all of these techniques so far are standard practices at all animation and visual effects houses. Don't worry, I'll let you know if I can't answer something . . .
. . . and now a question from me - what's a Scatlet?
The characters are straightforward. I figured the hole would be poked in a -stationary background- because it'd be easier to figure out "paint black zillions of times" than to do the math and figure out what (eventually pixel colors, but in this context "objects") would go there, when it'd just be covered anyhow. That existing method reminds me of the "Painter's Algorithm" they used to talk about in 3D programming for z-buffers.
The second I have any money I'd actually like to collect traditional layout art. I like when they have distortion, etc. to account for recreating elaborate angles and movements just with a simple pan (see An American Tail still in Chris Hart's Drawing for Animation book as a clear example even though I am certain you already know what I mean and have several similar example in mind...
A Scatlet is a baby ScatteredLogical. I just made it up off the top of my head to fill a need. I was being lighthearted :D
Ah, now I get it. I had Google'd "Scatlet", looked through old Boy Scout manuals, asked friends online, but couldn't figure it out . . . but I like it. ;-)
Great movie!
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Just Kidding!
(No offense, of course, to all the people who worked on it----the CG was very good. I'm just saying substance-wise.)
I liked it a lot :D I'm glad to see the squash and stretch thing. It makes it look nice and cartoony looking and not as stiff as Shrek (not so much in Shrek 2).
Did you work on any other of Dreamwork's stuff Kevan? Any of the traditional movies? Because it looks like traditional animators made it.
As for the the people who didn't like the story, yes it was silly and kinda stupid in a GOOD way. It was MENT to be that way lol. Just because it's silly doesn't make the story bad or anything.
James
Next film is "Over the Hedge" for next spring, with "Flushed Away" to be next fall. We're also releasing the Wallace and Gromit movie along with Aardman this fall. Kevan's right, though--the films have completely different styles, so they'll use animation techniques in different ways.
On a side note, Kevan, I'm down here in the DreamWorks Glendale studio, but maybe the next time I'm up at PDI I'll drop by your office.