November 2010 Vol.

33 Number 11

Innovations in visual computing for DCC professionals

10

Features
COVER STORY

Mind over Matter

Animation puts its own spin on the superhero genre with a

computer-generated comedy, created in stereoscopy, in which the villain
10 DreamWorks
is quite endearing.

By Barbara Robertson

16

26

Like a Rolling Stone

The superspy James Bond is back in action, this time as a computergenerated character in Bizarre Creations 007 Blood Stone, a computer
16game
that adheres to the high-production value of the movie franchise.

By Martin McEachern

Departments
Editors Note

Whos the Hero Now?

used to be easy identifying the heroes from the villains in animated

series and movies. But with the plot twists in the recently
2 Ittelevision
released CG features Megamind and Tangled, artists and animators had

their work cut out for them when creating the characters for these roles.

Spotlight

E-on Softwares Vue 9. NEC Display Solutions MultiSync

EX231W. VirtualRig Studios Release 2.1.
4graphics
CPUs with embedded
processors are making their presence felt in the marketplace.
Products

News

Viewpoint

8The World of VFX, Animation, and Stereo 3D Production. x

Portfolio

34Burak Canpolat. x
Review

38

NECs PA271W-BK. x

Back Products

software and hardware releases. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxx x
39 Recent

Once More with Feeling

Walt Disney Feature Animation set out to create a CG-animated

film based on the fairy tale Rapunzel, the crew knew that the focus
26 When
of the story would be the characters hair. To this end, they devised
complicated simulations that resulted in an enchanting performance
in the movie Tangled.
By Barbara Robertson

Achieving Production Readiness

looking to hire new grads, companies in the film, TV, and games
industries, as well as those in the medical, scientific, and design fields,
36 When
look for candidates who are production-ready. To this end, schools and
even technology companies are making sure they do their part to get
newcomers up to speed on the latest techniques.

SEE IT IN

Harry Potter: Previs, VFX, and post.

Restoring classic filmssound and
picture.
Transitioning from student to pro.
Surround sound for television and film.

ON THE COVER

The animation team at DreamWorks spent a great deal of time

playing mind games when creating the villain Megamind and
the hero Metro Man in the CG feature that carries the same
moniker as the films charismatic, likeable baddie. See pg. 10.

November 2010

EditorsNote

Whos the Hero Now?

The Magazine for Digital Content Professionals

E D I TO R I A L

KAREN MOLTENBREY
Chief Editor

ike most youngsters, I used to love sitting in front of the television watching cartoons on Saturday mornings. Back then, the options were extremely limited by
todays standards. Nevertheless, that small weekly time block offered a t reasure
trove of entertainment from Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros., and others.
In those shows, it was easy to distinguish the heroes from the villains.
Take, for instance, the 2D animated television series Wacky Races. Dick
Dastardly a nd M uttley, i n t he M ean M achine, w ere Team V illain,
while t he s weet-natured southern belle Penelope Pitstop, d riving t he
Compact Pussycat, and the gentlemanly Peter Perfect in the slick racer,
were from Team Hero. How did a y oung kid know which team the
characters were on? First, the characters names were a dead giveaway,
as were the names of their vehicles. A lso, the characters looked their
part: D astardly, w ith t he e xtended, e nlarged c hin a nd long, n arrow
mustache; Penelope, with the cute pink outfit and long, blond hair. In
fact, identifying the hero and villain in these cartoon series was easy: Wile E. Coyote,
bad; Road Runner, good. Ditto for Sylvester and Tweety. And the list goes on.
At the theater, Disney certainly had the hero/villain (protagonist/antagonist) formula down to a science. Snow White and her seven dwarf friends were good, while
the Wicked Queen Grimhilde was evil (just in case you didnt catch her full name).
Cinderella and Prince Charming, good; the evil stepsisters, bad. The cute Dalmatians (all 101 of t hem), g ood; Cruella, bad. Mowgli, B aloo, a nd B agheera, g ood;
Shere Kahan, bad. Simba, Aladdin, and Ariel, all good; Scar, Jafar, and Ursula, all
bad. Even in last years The Princess and the Frog, the lovely, hard-working Tiana was
good; the scheming voodoo magician Dr. Facilier was not.
There were certain things you could count on when it came to the heroes and the villains in animated series and features. But in this months CG movie Mega mind, the role
of hero and villain is not clear-cut. When Megamind and Metro Man land on Earth,
the former becomes a n outcast a nd the latter a b eloved hero. A fter many attempts,
Megamind defeats his enemy. Out of sorts, he helps create another hero, who ends up
becoming more of a schemer than Megamind ever was. With a plot twist like this, the
animators were challenged with creating a likeable villainno easy feat when the baddie eliminates the hero during the first few minutes of the film. (See Mind over Matter on page 10 for a detailed look at how the characters for the film were created.)
In another character twist, Disney mixed things up a bit when re-telling the fairy
tale of Rapunzel. In the Brothers Grimm version, a prince courts the beautiful girl
with the long hair, but in Disneys CG animated film Tangled, Rapunzel is the character with the royal blood, and it is a thief, not a prince, who rescues her from the
towerthough it is clear who is really in charge. (See Once More with Feeling on
page 26 to see how this touching tale was crafted.)
The last hero/villain story in this issue contains many unpredictable plot twists.
But in the video game Blood Stone, British agent James Bond takes on yet another
supervillain, this time within an interactive game environment (see Like a Rolling
Stone, pg. 16). No questioning whos the good guy and whos the bad guy here.
Todays digital artists are challenged with blurring the lines between good and evil,
using digital technologies to endear audiences to those who, in the past, would have
been difficult to embrace. So whos the hero now? These CG artists and animators.

karen@cgw.com (603) 432-7568

36 East Nashua Road
Windham, NH 03087

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Courtney Howard, Jenny Donelan,

Audrey Doyle, George Maestri,
Kathleen Maher, Martin McEachern,
Barbara Robertson

WILLIAM R. RITTWAGE

Publisher, President and CEO,

COP Communications

SA L E S
LISA BLACK

Associate Publisher
National Sales Education Recruitment
lisab@cgw.com (818) 660-6323
fax: (214) 260-1127

KELLY RYAN

Classifieds and Reprints Marketing

kryan@copcomm.com
(818) 291-1155

Editorial Office / LA Sales Office:

620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, CA 91204

(800) 280-6446

PRODUCTION
KEITH KNOPF

Production Director
Knopf Bay Productions
keith@copcomm.com (818) 291-1158

MICHAEL VIGGIANO
Art Director

mviggiano@copcomm.com

CHRIS SALCIDO

Account Representative

csalcido@copprints.com (818) 291-1144

Computer Graphics World Magazine

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CHIEF EDITOR
karen@CGW.com

November 2010

W
O
L
F
K
R
O
W
N
W
O
D
G
IN
K
C
O
N
K
ROADBLOCKS WITH
*
5
E
IT
U
CREATIVE S

By Edward J. Correia
Images of the Ford Mustang* in this ad were created and provided by the Bandito Brothers studio.

TO GAIN THE FULL BENEFIT OF TODAYS POWERFUL MULTI-CORE SYSTEMS, APPLICATIONS MUST
BE CAPABLE OF DIVIDING TASKS INTO MULTIPLE THREADS AND HANDING THEM TO THE
OPERATING SYSTEM FOR EXECUTION.
Fortunately for lmmakers, animators, and other
digital content producers, Adobe Creative Suite* 5 has
been rewritten for just that purpose, and it can now take
full advantage of all 24 threads that a two-processor,
six-core Intel processor-based system can deliver.
Bandito Brothers is a Los Angeles-based media
company that uses the latest technology to create
high-quality audio and visual content. Among its directors
is Jacob Rosenberg, a lmmaker and author who in 1994
used software from Adobe Systems to build his own
video editing system. For more than a decade since, he
has been working with Adobe as a senior consultant on
the continuing development of its video editing software

and has written and hosted numerous Adobe Premiere

Pro* training DVDs.
Rosenberg, who also serves as the chief technology
ofcer of Bandito Brothers, overseeing their PostProduction department, is considered a foremost expert
in digital technology and its use in lm and video. He
spoke with Intel Visual Adrenaline about how the
performance improvements in Creative Suite 5 have
helped change the way his company manages its digital
workow, including making possible same-day edits and
improved post-production processes, which ultimately
helped to boost the companys bottom line.

Go to http://visualadrenaline.intel.com
READ THE FULL ARTICLE and learn how the
lmmakers at Bandito Brothers turn out products
faster and more protable than ever before.
Intel does not make any representations or warranties whatsoever regarding quality, reliability, functionality, or compatibility of third-party vendors and their devices. All products, dates, and plans are
based on current expectations and subject to change without notice. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and
other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Copyright 2010. Intel Corporation. All rights reserved

E-on Offers a Better Vue

E-on Software has upped the ante with Release 9 of its Vue
product line, which, among other advances, introduces antiflickering algorithms specifically engineered for rendering large,
ultra-detailed natural environments. As a result of this rendering
technology, the company believes the use of Vue will extend
beyond the scope of matte paintings and into the realm of fully
animated 3D shots.
Like its predecessor, Vue 9 has been developed around the
same three-tiered family structure. Vue 9 for CG Professionals
(Vue 9 Infinite and Vue 9 xStream) is the premiere solution for creating exceptionally rich
and realistic natural environments
for seamless integration into any
production workflow. Vue 9 for
3D Artists (Vue 9 Esprit, Vue 9
Studio, and Vue 9 Complete)
provides 3D artists with modular applications to create rich
3D scenery and landscapes. Vue 9 for 3D Enthusiasts (Vue 9
Pioneer, Theme-Packs, and Vue 9 Frontier) features contentfilled, easy-to-use scenic nature-creation tools for home and
family use, with Vue 9 Frontier specifically dedicated to Poser
and Daz Studio users. The Vue 9 Professional solutions will
ship first.
Capitalizing on new technologies introduced in previous versions, Vue 9 adds other new and extended features.
Internal refactoring enables Vue 9 to render as much as 30

percent faster than previous versions. Advanced data fragmentation and caching distributes scenes to the renderer for
completely interactive network rendering. The new version also
contains an improved terrain editor with contextual brushes
and fully customizable terrain brushes, automatic terrain retopology, sculpting, painting masks, a smear brush, and more.
Its HyperBlob Technology, meanwhile, converts HyperTextured
MetaBlobs to polygon objects with user-defined LOD for the
creation of extremely rich and detailed

rock formations. Custom interfaces let users create simplified

high-level controls and access these controls directly from the
material editor, the terrain editor, or the object editors.
The Auto Saving and Scene Snapshots feature automatically
saves the scenes in the background while the artist is working,
without interfering with workflow.
Users of Vue xStream or Vue Infinite under maintenance will
receive the upgrade to the corresponding Vue 9 product at no
charge. For others, Vue 9 xStream and Vue 9 Infinite will ship
this month.

PRODUCT: DCC

NEC Display Gets Ultra-Slim

NEC Display Solutions of America announced the MultiSync
EX Series for professional users looking for increased productivity and sleek aesthetics.
The introduction of the series begins with the 23-inch MultiSync EX231W, an LED-backlit LCD monitor with DisplayPort
and DVI-I for full high-definition resolution. Ultra-lightweight at
9.3 pounds including the stand, the monitor sports an ultra-slim
bezel (14.6mm width). A USB pass-through is located on the
top of the monitor for quick connection of a Webcam or for
simple flash drive access. In terms of ergonomics, the monitor has a built-in carrying case and fully adjustable stand with
110mm height adjust, pivot, swivel, and tilt. The quick-release

PRODUCT: MONITOR
4

November 2010

stand makes the product especially suitable in financial applications that use multiple tiled monitors.
The series features new technologies, including a human
sensor, which detects user activity in front of the monitor and
reduces its power up to 95 percent during periods of inactivity.
Also, the monitors ambient light sensor detects external light
sources and adjusts the displays brightness accordingly, while
its carbon savings meter calculates the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Users can adjust the sensor settings as
well as the inactivity period.
The MultiSync EX231W will be available at the end of the
month for an estimated price of $339.

VirtualRig Studio Blurs the Line with Release 2.1

VirtualRig Studio, a Czech software company, has unveiled
a new version of its VirtualRig software, which lets users
create realistic curved motion-blur simulations previously
only available with expensive camera rigs.
Unlike many other offerings on the market, VirtualRig
is believed to be the only software product supporting
curved motion blur, enabling artists to choose any background picture and add virtual motion blur. With VirtualRig, the artist decides what to blur and by how much, adjusting
the speed to change the look of the picture.
VirtualRig 2.1 can be used on both standard photographic
images and computer-generated imagery, including HDR images
and high-resolution panoramic pictures. VirtualRig supports
images with an alpha transparency channel up to 8 bit, allowing users to decompose a picture into separate layers, render
them with different speed and blur settings, and combine the
final renders.
According to a VirtualRig spokesperson, the company created the software to overcome the limitations of car-run photography processing, which represents 75 percent of all automotive

photography and, increasingly, 3D visualizations within the

auto industry. VirtualRig takes advantage of static background
photography, blurring it by drawing in vectors and regulating
the blur before the real or CG car is placed into the scene. The
solution drastically reduces the cost of professional car photography, cuts down on production time, and brings new opportunities to CGI photography.
While VirtualRig was designed for professional car photography, it can be used in any situation where accurate motion blur
is required.
Available for both Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems, VirtualRig ships in both Lite and Pro versions for
$799 and $3699, respectively.

PRODUCT: EFFECTS

CPUs with Embedded Graphics Processors Impact the Market

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industrys research and consulting firm for
graphics and multimedia, announced its
latest findings in the struggle between
CPUs and GPUs in the report Opportunities, Threats, and Changes Created by
the EPG & HPUTension at the Inflection Point.
The research finds that a genuine
inflection point is occurring in the PC
and related industries due to the integration of powerful SIMD graphics processing elements with multi-core, multi-stage
scalar X86 CPUs. In so doing, JPR finds
that the stalwart and ubiquitous integrated graphics processor (IGP) will fade
out of existence.
Because the graphics processor unit
(GPU) grew in greater complexity than
the CPU during the past eight years,
exceeding the transistor count and
matching or exceeding the die size of the

NEWS: CPU
6

November 2010

CPU, many thought the two would never

be able to cohabitate.
Yet, amazing things have become
possible as semiconductor manufacturing tolerances get ever smaller. With four
times the number of transistors possible
in the same space as the previous manufacturing node or feature space, the
compute density demanded by GPUs
suddenly becomes not just feasible, but
completely possible, and practical.
Moving graphics to the CPUs will be
attractive first to the builders of low-cost
machines. Intels Core i5 (Clarkdale and
Arrandale), which are embedded processor graphics (EPG) units, were the first
wave. Intels Sandybridge will be the next
generation, while AMD will introduce a
massive SIMD GPU array in its Fusion
processors (Ontario and Llano), which
will be the first heterogeneous processor
units (HPU.)

The impact in the total PC and related

market on discrete GPUs due to the
combination of devices being offered
with integrated graphics (IGPs, EPGs,
and HPUs) will break the historical rise of
discrete GPU sales and put the category
in decline.
The EPG/HPU will truly revolutionize
the PC and associated industries, the
study finds. The amount of computation
capability available in the size, weight,
and power consumption of systems
equipped with EPG/HPUs, and for the
price they will be offered, will upset the
market dynamics like never before, or
perhaps not since the introduction of the
PC, predicts JPR.
The Opportunities, Threats, and
Changes Created by the EPG & HPU
market study is available now in both
electronic and hard copy editions for
$2499 at www.jonpeddie.com.

100% modo image from Bruce Long, Giannini Creative, Chicago

Ready for adventure

20100921_CGW_backpack.indd 1

9/21/2010 6:40:37 PM

By Jenny Fulle

Business

The World of VFX, Animation,

and Stereo 3D Production

November 2010

2010 Columbia Tristar Marketing Group, Inc.

It seems as though the major studios ar e producing fewer films than

ve had a car eer that has spanned mor e than 30 y ears in visual
effects and animation. My first job was in 1980 at Industrial Light ever. The appetite for risk is as low as I have ever seen it. There seems to
& Magic, the year Star Wars: Episode VThe Empire Strikes Back was be more and more partnering with the small studios, VC financiers, and
released. My first taste of how lucrative and larger than life this business privately held production companies. These smaller and more indepencould be was in the form of a $700 profit share from the film. That was dent production entities ar e not generally gr een-lighting $100 milliona lot of money for an 18-year-old, and it says something about the free- plus films, which have typically (and, relatively, in terms of todays dollars)
been the br ead and butter of visual effects companies. The majority of
flowing nature of spending back then.
Clich as it sounds, times w ere much simpler then. I n
those early days, if you had a film with visual effects, you
had only a handful of choices when it came to getting the
work done. S hots had to be planned car efully. Cameras
were large, cumbersome, noisy, and had to be chained to
the floor for steadiness. Visual effects facilities were filled
with model shops, motion-contr ol stages, animation
down shooters, and optical printers. P roductions weapon of choice was an IBM S electric II and a good copy
machine that would duplicate one page at a time. I f you
wanted temps for y our preview screening, you likely got
5272s and dxd (double exposed) elements shot on hi-con
film. Those of us who roamed with dinosaurs will remember what 5272s were, but for those who dont, 5272 was a
hi-contrast, black-and-white film stock. Back in the days
of opticals, it was used as a quick and inexpensiv e way
With an infrastructure that remains in place after each project, Jenny Fulles The Creativeto create a temp comp b y double exposing two film eleCartel offers director/supervisors the necessary technology for their respective projects at
ments, such as a model and a plate, by means of an optia reasonable cost.
cal printer. If you needed a few stars added to a night sky,
it would cost you about $10,000. But all bets were off if you required todays independent films seem to be more in the range of $30 million
them to be streaking across the sky. There was job security and healthy to $70 million. The challenge is innovating in such a way as to be able
to accommodate the visual effects for these films.
budgets for visual effects work.
Though the budgets may be lower, the expectations have not dropped.
Those days of milk and honey seem so long gone now that discussing
them is like talking about having had to walk five miles through snow, Many of these films are equally as ambitious in terms of pr oduction
value and visual stimulation as the studio tent poles of y esteryear. Prouphill, both to and from school.
duction companies are looking for new and less expensive ways of doing things. This includes their approach to visual effects work. Parking
all the shots for a film that is heavily laden with visual effects shots at
Jenny Fulle is the founder of The Creativeone facility is becoming less and less viable in the new world order.
Cartel (www.thecreative-cartel.com) and a
Depending on your point of view, this new landscape either presents
visual effects producer with over 30 years
opportunity or potential doom in the visual effects world. For many
experience in the VFXs and animation industry.
visual effects facilities, the options are innovation or failur e. For individuals and small gr oups of talented pr ofessionals possessing an entr epreneurial spirit, the possibilities are numerous.

n
o
d
-

)
f

.
n
g
t

2010 Columbia Tristar Marketing Group, Inc.

Larger visual effects companies

tend to hav e the r esources to ride
out the r ocky r oad as they scramble
to come up with new and innovative
ways to cope with the changing busi ness. What were seeing no w is a lot
of the larger visual effects companies
putting skin in the game as a way
of reducing their budgets to fit within
the constraints of today s budgets.
Theyre deferring up-fr ont payment
for a piece of the box-office receipts.
Midsize companies don t often
have the luxury of investing their revenues for potential back-end pay off;
theyre fr equently sur viving job to
job. Consequently, w eve seen quite
a fe w midsiz e visual effects companies close their doors during the past
couple of years, and many more that
The Creative-Cartels latest project was for the 2011 movie Priest.
are struggling to keep them open today. Times are most trying for these companies, and they are the most represents significant savings for productions. Additionally, by staying
vulnerable to the demands in the changing climate.
current and using specializ ed service providers and tax incentiv es, we
can dramatically reduce the cost of production.
For Screen Gems film Priest, which is due out in theaters next y ear,
Changing with the Times
The
Creative-Cartel was able to assemble a cast of talent that spanned
Technical innovations, combined with ne w economic times, ar e causfrom a truly gifted modeler wor king from his home, to an established
ing the business of visual effects to adapt and reinvent itself.
However, all this change pr ovides incredible opportunity for some. character house in the B ay Area. In all, ther e were approximately 12
The motto for talented individuals and smaller companies should be vendors that contributed to the successful deliv ery of mor e than 750
carpe diem. Never has the need and desir e for lo wer-cost, high-qual- top-quality visual effect shots. These artists and companies w ere pri ity visual effects work been so gr eat. Its certainly no secr et that o ver marily based in California, as the film was qualified under the states
the years, the business of visual effects has evolved dramatically. Tech- tax-incentive program. A few years ago, the quality of the work in Priest
would have been accessible only to a pr oduction with a budget thr ee
nological innovations have steadily and radically changed what can be
conceptualized and ex ecuted in a photor ealistic manner. Things have times greater than what was allocated for in Priest.
In addition to adapting to a ne w landscape of changing visual
now developed to a point wher e many of the tools r equired to do a
large portion of visual effects work are available as off-the-shelf software effects, there is a ne w push for films to be released in ster eo 3D, or
and hardware. This is a relatively new evolution. As fortune would have S3D. Whether a show is shot in S3D, or shot mono and converted as a
post process, the task of managing the process involved in S3D producit for this gr oup, never have the r equired tools been so sophisticated,
tion increasingly is falling to the visual effects department. This adds
accessible, and affordable.
an additional layer of complexity in terms of personnel and equipment
The challenge now becomes how to navigate all the companies and
the individuals that ar e providing ser vices at a cost and quality lev el necessary to manage shows.
The opportunity for a company like The Creative-Cartel is to con that are in line with the changing demands. Typically, in the past, if
you wanted to economically lev erage the expertise of multiple compa- tinue to find ways to streamline and economiz e so that high-quality
nies, you had to hire one of a handful of supervisor/producers with the visual effects and S3D becomes more viable for filmmakers at all levels.
expertise to navigate the global community of visual effects artists and In my view, among all the challenges and changes taking place in our
companies. With that initial team, you would set up your own depart- industry, there exists incredible opportunity to reinvent and innovate.
ment, including the building out of the infrastr ucture to manage and For this 30-year veteran, the current challenges have ignited a spark of
control all the digital assets and data involved. Generally the cost of this passion not felt in quite some time. n
model was limited only to large-studio franchise films.
Two years ago, I started my own company, The Creative-Cartel, be- Jenny Fulle, founder of The Creative-Cartel and visual effects producer, has over 30
cause I saw an oppor tunity to seize the day and ser ve the needs of
years experience in the visual effects and animation industry. The Creative-Cartel is a
filmmakers in this rapidly changing business environment. The Cre- Los Angeles-based production company specializing in the assembly of teams tailored
ative-Cartel has an infrastr ucture in place and can be utiliz ed by pro- specifically for the visual effects, animation, and stereo 3D needs of individual projects.
ductions that can benefit from this model but don t have the budget Throughout her career, Fulle has held positions at many of the major studios, including
to build it fr om scratch. A t The Creative-Cartel, the fundamental in - Sony Pictures Imageworks, DreamWorks SKG, Disney, Warner Digital Studio, Digital
frastructure is put in place and not dismantled betw een projects. This Domain, and ILM.

November 2010

3DCG I

Dreamworks
Animations
Megamind places a
Likeable villain in
A superhero comedy
By Barbara Robertson

2010 D

10

November 2010

3DCG I

Why would a filmmaker choose

to create a superhero action movie with animation rather
than live action? One out-of-this-world reason is to turn
the genre on its ear.
Thats the fun of this mo
vie, says Tom
McGrath, who dir ected D reamWorks Anima tions Megamind. I t turns the superher o genr e
upside do wn. It isnt a par ody or a satir e. Its a
comedy. And yet, the heart of the drama is a love
story between two unlikely par tners, Megamind
and Roxanne.
Megamind, the star of the film, is a big-headed, blue alien v oiced by Will Ferrell, and he s a
supervillain, not a superher o. With the help
of his alien sidekick, M inion (D avid C ross), a
fish-headed robot-gorilla, M egamind wants to
conquer Metro City. But his evil plans never succeed, thanks to superhero Metro Man (Brad Pitt).
Roxanne ( Tina F ey), a r eporter in M etro City,
is M etro M ans girlfriend and fr equent M egamind kidnap victim. The plot twists when
Megamind accidentally defeats Metro Man and
a new villain emerges.

n n n n

with that enjoyment factor, he became super appealing.

The second performance challenge for the animation
team was in differentiating Metro Man and Tighten, two
superheroes who ar e physically identical fr om the neck

At top, director Tom McGrath usually recorded the dialog tracks for
Megamind (Will Ferrell) and Roxanne (Tina Fey) separately, but on
three occasions, the actors improvised the shots together. At
bottom, Minion, the fish inside the bowl, provided interesting
opportunities for stereo 3D artists to dive deeply behind the glass.

It was nice to hav e a small cast of char acters, says M cGrath, who pr eviously dir ected
the ensemble cast in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (see
Home Is Where the Art Is, October 2008). We could
focus on their relationships and on putting a new twist on
the dynamics. Its a huge, epic action stor y, but w e have
intimate relationship stories going on.

Move It, Move It, Move It

Jason Schleifer, head of character animation, led the team
of 40 animators at PDI/D reamWorks in R edwood City,
California, and 20 more at DreamWorks animation in Glendale, California, who created the action and the emotion.
Our biggest challenge, Schleifer says, was making a
likeable villain that the audience wants to follo w. In the
first five minutes, Megamind kills the hero, but we had to
make people root for him.
The first test performances for M egamind produced a
crazy-eyed, wicked villain who lifted his arched brows maniacally and frowned a lot. Typical evil behavior. Then, the
artists realized that even though his dialog might be wicked,
if he smiled and looked happy rather than evil, he became
appealing. He is a villain because he likes the challenge,
the excitement of bad guy versus good guy, Schleifer explains. He enjoys taking o ver the city . When we played

down. We had to find a way to differentiate their silhouettes, Schleifer says.

They decided that Metro Man, who was born a superhero, knew how to control his muscles when he used his
superpowers. If he wanted to heat a cup of coffee, hed say
screw the microwave, tense his abs, position his legs and
head, and use his laser vision, Schleifer says. The force
would kick his head, but he could absorb the power.
Tighten, on the other hand, is a former cameraman
without Metro Mans lifetime of experience with super powers. He would react differently. Tighten would shoot
backwards, Schleifer says. But as he became more powerful and gained control of his power, we played with using his physicality differently.
To accent these superher o performances, the animators
could activate a muscle-based system that made it possible
to scale and flex the muscles. We wanted Tighten and
Metro Man to have crazy, powerful poses, Schleifer says.
All the characters in this film moved thanks to the
studios ne w rigging tool called Rig. O n How to Train
Your Dragon, the dragons used Rig, but the humans had
the old system, Schleifer says. So this was the first show
that used Rig for all the characters. The background characters had the same rig as the hero characters, which made
it easier for the animators. B ecause they had consistent
controls for ev ery character, they could concentrate on
the characters personality. They didnt have to spend time
learning new tools.

2010 DreamWorks Animation LLC.

November 2010

11

n n n n

3DCG I

Tighten, in red whispering in Megaminds ear, is a superhero-turned-villain. To animate his and others
capes, character effects artists filmed themselves wearing capes while flying down zip lines.
The character with the most personality is
Megamind, the villainwho is Schleifer s favorite. He ended up being such a compelling
character, Schleifer says. A lot of that has to
do with ho w the animators per formed him.
He puts his hear t on his sleev e and is such a
wonderful character to watch. I love him.

Mega Characters
Mark D onald was the character lead who
oversaw the per formance of that compelling
character, and he was also one of sev en supervising animators who managed teams working
on par ticular sequences for the film. Weve
had supervision [of teams] based on sequences
in the past, Schleifer says. I ts important to
help every animator grow as an artist over the
course of a show. But, we also had character
leads as a resource for animators so they didnt
have to figure out the characters on the fly.

The character leads worked with M cGrath

to cr eate a librar y of facial expr essions and
poses that the animators could use dir ectly,
partially, or as reference. To create a smile, for
example, an animator might dial in a shape
and then use lay ers of contr ols to impr ove it.
All the hero characters faces have several hundred controls for mo ving predesigned shapes
from the librar y, and D onald began r efining
Megaminds facial expressions once the riggers
had the created basic controls.
Megamind had a range of expressions two or
three times greater than the other characters, and
he had a huge head, Donald says. We worked
with the character technical dir ectors to tw eak
expressions and fine-tune the rig based on directions from Tom [McGrath]. We wanted to push
his face into cartoony shapes, but we also needed
a fine degree of control to sell the dramatic and
emotional scenes, which are the opposite of a car-

toon. The smallest muscle twitch. The smallest

movement in the brow or mouth. This character
had that range.
On screen, the animators see a shaded, textured version of the characters, with shado ws
but not with final lighting. They could also
look at any shot in ster eo 3D. We all hav e
a tendency to cheat to the camera, D onald
says, to maybe curl or stretch an arm that you
wouldnt see in 2D. B ut in 3D, y ou see all of
it instantly.
To help with the subtle per formances, the
crew filmed actor Will Ferrell as he performed
the dialog, using a small lipstick video camera
affixed to the corner of the r ecording booth.
The challenge is making it feel like his voice
is actually coming from the character, Donald
says. When you achieve that, you stop seeing
it as an animated performance.
For the br oader per formances, the anima tors often filmed themselves. Sometimes mechanical things have to happen, so if you video
yourself, y ou can study that and see what
youre doing, Donald explains. And, you can
act in front of the camera and show the director how you intend to animate the shot.
In fact, to see how the supervillains and heroes might fly and how their capes would flow
around them as they did, several people on the
team filmed themselves flying on a zip line.
It was super fun, Schleifer says. One of the
things we wanted to do with these characters was
to push the superhero iconic look, so we worked
on trying to get cool graphic poses, to tw eak the
bodies to get the arcs in the legs, and sculpt muscles to get graphic lines. And, we wanted to have
dynamic poses with the capes.

Mega Stereo
This is Phil Captain 3D McNallys 10th stereo 3D movie and his
sixth at DreamWorks this year counting the Shrek conversions.
We talked with him about how stereo 3D has progressed and
how the crew used stereo for Megamind.
Where in the process did you begin working on the
stereo version of Megamind?

We worked closely with Kent Seki, the director of previsualization,

who was kind of like a cinematographer. We have superheroes flying about a city, so that was a great situation for maxing out the 3D.
Ken did a great job of composing in a way that really uses depth and
in thinking of ideas that will be spatially interesting.
Can you give us an example?

Megamind has an idea walla clothesline with bits of paper

hung up on clothespins. There are so many things hanging in
space that it gives you interesting spatial composition. Its a simple idea, but strong. Also, Minion is a fish in a goldfish bowl. The
bowl is the characters head. It is an invisible wall with a transpar12

November 2010

ent watery surface, which is interesting. You can really see the 3D
in the refractions in the water.
Shiny things, shiny paint, shiny windows are great in 3D. When
you ask someone about reflections in a mirror, they tend to think
the mirror is 2D until they really look. Of course, it isnt. The image
is not on a surface. Stereoscopic imaging can really hold a lot of
detail that might be distracting in 2D. Thats why filmmakers use
shallow focus so much in 2D, to simplify the shot. So, reflections
are rich spatial environments that we can use.
How, then, do you focus the audiences eye in a richly
detailed stereo image?

We use other things. Think of a theater environment. They use

sound, lighting. If one person is talking, the focus is obvious.
Maybe some people move and others dont. We dont have a
problem knowing what to focus on in real life.
Did the stereo artists use your Happy Ratio software to
set the stereo cameras?

3DCG I
Damon Riesberg, head of character effects,
led the team charged with creating exciting yet
believable capes. They got someone to teach
them to sew, Schleifer says. They built their
own capes out of various fabricscotton, silk,
linen. Then, they filmed themselves on the zip
line and saw ho w non-heroic the capes r eally
looked. Realism is not heroic. Its the exact opposite of heroic.
But, b y applying the pr operties that they
discovered in the r eal world to a cloth solv er
in Autodesks Maya, Riesbergs team created a
solution that worked for the film. We could
have the capes simulated with r ealistic physical pr operties, but w e could also sculpt spe cific shapes and animate them, Schleifer says.
We could go with r eal-world physics, and
then when the superher oes blew up the r ealworld physics by moving 1000 miles per hour
and stopping in a matter of frames, w e could
blend in keyframe shapes to sculpt the performance of the capes.
The animators could start with the base
simulation, tweak and hand-animate whatever
they needed to create the silhouette they wanted, and then blend back into a simulation.

Mega Crowds
In addition to the five main characters, hun dreds of backgr ound characters fill Metro
City. In some of the shots, we had crowds of
over 70,000 people, Schleifer says. They are
Megaminds guiding r od within his character
arc; the way the city responds to him helps define his arc through the film. So the cr owds
needed to feel special and unique.

n n n n

Metro Man is the only character who can fly through the enormous CG city and fall without flattening
himself on the pavement. The crew constructed and textured buildings in the city procedurally and
animated crowds using Massive software.
Thus, the studio decided to use Massive
software for the first time to control the allimportant cr owds. F our animators cr eated
motion cycles so the individual Massive agents
would cheer, run in terror, boo, stroll around,
and react in other appr opriate ways depend ing on the situation. A cr owd team built the
network of brains that trigger ed the cycles.
We had a huge number of motion cy cles for
the crowd, Schleifer says. The nice thing is
that we can use the brains and cycles for future
shows, which will save us a ton of time.
To provide an appr opriately large stage for
Megamind and the enormous crowds, the effects team built an elaborate city. We had to
use a matte painting to do a city for Madagascar, McGrath says. Now, we have a [3D]
city the size of Chicago, with enormous o verpasses, fire hydrants, and details like tar filling
in the cracks in the streets. Its a human-based

Well, I trust myself by using tools with my opinion in them.

The way to think of the Happy Ratio is that its the ratio between
interaxial and convergence that makes me happy; the balance
between comfort and a 3D effect and an emotional position. In
the software, the camera can measure how far things are, so the
artists position a plane to measure the nearest object. A calculation then runs in the background that drives the stereo attributes
in a way that sets up the shot similarly to the way we have done
shots like that on previous movies. It sets up the amount of roundness for a particular distance and lens, and positions the whole
shot based on input from the scene.
Are you planning to add to Happy Ratio in any way?

Were looking at automating it further. We could almost run an

automatic first pass on a sequence to give us more time to make
creative decisions. Just like autofocus on a camera means you can
concentrate on position. It would be like point and shoot for stereo.
How is the stereo pipeline set up at DreamWorks?

We have a pool of artists who work on camera and final layoutthere might be 20 artists all working on the movie at one

world. Its important that our characters live in

a tangible, real world. There has to be jeopardy
and real stakes. We dont flatten characters if
they fall. Metro Man is the only character who
can fall and live.
The environments fell under the pur view of
visual effects supervisor P hilippe D enis, as did
modeling, sur facing, effects, and lighting
everything ex cept character pr evis, animation,
and camera layout. We tried to be smart working with the previsualization team, and they did
a good job, but even so, I stopped counting after
75 environments and sets, Denis says.

Mega City
The city was the biggest environment, and
likely the biggest ev er built at D reamWorks;
it had to accommodate superher oes flying
overhead during action sequences. The crew
constructed it entirely with 3D geometry. But,

time. In addition to [the] camera [work], they prepare files for animation and set dressing. Each person who opens a shot to work
on camera does the stereo settings. At final crunch, we tend to
have a smaller group with an eye for stereo work on the shots.
And at the end, I jump in. Were at the stage where all the leads
do not yet have full stereo skills and experience. So, I might partner with the final layout lead, or head of layout or previs, to make
up the stereo gap. But, as the stereo experience increases, the
artists take up more and more of that work.
How are you seeing the use of stereo changing?

We refine the craft every time we work on an animated film at

DreamWorks. Megamind shows that weve got the craft dialed
in. Youll see not just neutral stereo that doesnt hurt, youll see
stereo smoothly integrated into the whole story. Its an almost
invisible contribution. The automated settings, the efficiency have
given us more time to craft the 3D the way we want it. With the
craft dialed in and the internal tools developed, everyone is confident about their choices. We can do half the movie automatically.
So, on each show going forward, the artists can think of their style
of stereo, what they want to do creatively. Thats the whole point.
November 2010

13

n n n n

3DCG I

maps and cr eated v olumes inside the build ings. We wanted to be sur e the windo ws
didnt have mirror-like reflections, Denis says.
We wanted to always see something inside,
so for each window, we could have a code that
defined the volume behind. As the camera
moved, youd have parallax and y oud see the
city come aliv e. A t night, w e bar ely had to
light the city because of the lights that ar e on
in the interiors.
Also, cars driv en with M assive added
lightsheadlights, taillightsto the nighttime
city. Massive was v ery successful for the cars
because its a procedural simulation, and thats
what traffic is all about, Denis notes. You define some rules and go . But when w ere really
far abo ve, w e just generate par ticles of light.
Light is always moving in the city. It was something we were especially concerned about.
Rather than tr ying to place hundr eds of
thousands of individual lights in the city , the
lighting artists used point-based global illumi nation as a bounce element. We could light
the street and get light bouncing back from the
buildings, Denis explains. I t was expensiv e,
so we rendered layers to manage it in compositing, which isnt the way we usually work. But,
it was inter esting for the night sequence. Although the studio relies on a proprietary comAt top, animators learned that if they showed Megamind enjoying himself while capturing the city, he
positor, the compositing ar tists wor ked with
became more appealing, a necessary trait for a villain who stars in a film. At bottom, Megaminds lair
The Foundrys Nuke to polish the images.
was nearly as complicated an environment to create as was the city.
In addition to cloth simulation and envi rather than modeling a few dozen buildings to fects ar tists cr eated a language to describe the
ronments, the ar tists on D eniss team cr eated
replicate and place in v arious configurations, buildings, Denis says. The advantage we had more typical effectsfire, dust, smoke, and
the artists decided to constr uct the buildings by going with the pr ocedural approach is that
other atmospherics. We used a lot of 3D simprocedurally.
we could manage the siz e of the buildings. We ulations and a lot of particles with 3D textures
We w ent with this appr oach because w e could decide to make a building wider or taller
for detail, Denis says. For fire, we used a 3D
were really concerned about r endering a city, at any point in time. We could also manage the volumetric simulation. The effects are almost
Denis says. We had nev er built such a big set,
level of detail in the model, the sur face, and the characters, but this is not a car toon. We really
and we wanted to be sur e we could change it at textures. The procedural system worked so well wanted the dramatic action sequences to be
will. They wanted, for example, to easily allow that the crew ended up creating fewer hero build- tangible, to feel big and danger ous. And, the
the crew to shorten a tall building if the dir ector ings than planned.
best way to tackle that is to use a lot of fluid
noticed that it cast a shadow on a character.
Because the pr ocedural ar chitecture had
simulation to get the details.
For each block in the city , the cr ew first a consistent UV str ucture, the ar tists could
In addition to being able to turn the
mapped large areas with buildings of a particular switch textures at any time. We could easily genre upside do wn, this type of r
ealism,
type and height. We had to find the rules that make a building out of concr ete that effects evidenced in mo vement and detail rather
make a city look like a city , Denis says. Cities needed to blow up, Denis says.
than in phot orealism, is another r eason
have an organic aspect, but they re organiz ed.
For such demolition, the effects crew created why M cGrath enjo ys cr eating a super You dont want too much v ariation. The team a system based on the B last Code plug-in for
hero mo vie in CG rather than liv e action.
based the maps for Metro City on Paris, creating, Maya. It took nine months of preparation, When y ou look at a liv e-action superher o
in effect, arrondissements (neighborhoods) that Denis says. We knew we had a lot of destruc- movie, y ou kind of kno w when the effects
spiraled out from the center.
tion, and we wanted to be sur e we had some- turn to CG, McGrath says. B ut, when the
Jonathan Gibbs, who had been chief effects thing ergonomic enough for the effects artists entire world is CG, y ou nev er feel like y ouve
architect on Monsters v s. A liens, supervised the to use. We looked at a lot of footage of building switched to a new world. Characters can even do
city dev elopment, wor king with gr oups fr om demolition, really looking at it to see the r e- their own stunts. Thats really exciting. n
the art department who helped define the design sponse, the size of the detail. The system works
Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a
and architectural rules that created windows and with texture maps to define the shattering.
other details in the right pr oportions for various
Shaders written in the studio s proprietary contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can
building sizes and styles. Then, some of the ef- rendering system managed the baked textur e be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net.
14

November 2010

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15

It looks good except the name

n n n n

Gaming

Like a

RoLLin g
Stone
7
Bizarre Creations puts
superspy James Bond back in
action with 007 Blood Stone

arlier this y ear, following the 2008 film release of Quantum

of Solace, a $586 million hit, director Sam Mendes was set to
roll on the next James Bond movie: the tentatively titled Bond
23. But in April, franchise co-caretakers Barbara Broccoli and Michael
G. Wilson, announced they were suspending pr oduction indefinitely
as the near-bankrupt MGM struggled to stay aliv e. Approximately $4
billion in debt, the once-mighty studio behind Gone with the Wind
and Doctor Zhivago is still trying to restructure, but until a deal can be
worked out, has precious little to bankroll an action juggernaut on the
scale required by a 007 flick.
To make matters worse, the playing field has been overcrowded of late
with superspy look-alikes, fr om Matt Damons Jason Bourne to Angelina
Jolies Salt, all duking it out in the multiplex es. As 007 remained in limbo
at the cash-strapped MGM, Broccoli and Wilson needed a way to put the
main attraction back in actionand fast.
To that end, they turned to Liv erpool, E ngland-based dev eloper B izarre Creations, architects of the epochal Project Gotham Racing 4 and this
springs racing hit Blur. Charged with pr oducing a game that has all the
star power, production value, and escapist mixture of romance, humor, and
adventure of the Bond films, the result is this months 007 Blood Stone for
the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
Scripted by veteran Bond writer B ruce Feirstein, the brains behind
Tomorrow Never Dies, GoldenEye, and The World is Not Enough, James
Bond 007: Blood Stone is an action-packed tour de force filled with car
and boat chases, international terr orists, an o ver-the-top villain, K en
Adams-inspired production design, and ex otic locales str etching from
Athens to Istanbul, Siberia to Bangkok, and even the South of France.

The Plot
Of course, the game wouldn t be complete without the iconic Bond
girl. In Blood Stone, shes Nicole Hunter, played by singer J oss Stone.
A socialite and diamond expert resembling a posh, more cerebral Paris
16

November 2010

By Martin McEachern

Hilton, Hunter becomes embroiled in a diamond trafficking ring that

draws the attention of ne w Bond super villain Greco. Together, Bond
and Hunter try to find a missing researcher feared dead in an interna tional conspiracy that may land the UKs new secret biochemical weapon in Grecos nefarious hands. As they race to foil his plans for world
domination, Bond and H unter navigate a plot that not only includes
diamond smuggling, but thr eads genetic engineering and globalism
into its complex narrative weave.
For Blood Stone, we wanted total immersion in the world that is
Bond, says longtime Bond custodian Wilson. Indeed, the breadth of
the collaboration betw een B izarre and EONthe pr oduction com pany behind the filmswas considerable. EON availed B izarre of
most of the Bond production crew to plug holes in their skill set. Bond
stuntman Ben Cooke choreographed the hand-to-hand combat for the
games fight sequences, while Bond costume designer Lindsay Pugh tailored the games digital clothes.
Actors Daniel Craig and Judi Dench also reprise their roles, lending
both their voice and digital likeness. Joss Stone, along with the Eurythmics Dave Stewart, composed the games theme song, Ill Take It All,
which plays over a splashy opening credit sequence featuring silhouettes
fighting and posing against DNA strands composed of diamondsthe
quintessential Bond film opening.
It was hugely important for us to present a cinematic experience that
will appeal to both Bond fans and gamers alike, says Bizarre producer Nick
Davies. The goal from the outset, he says, was not only to immerse the
player in the Bond experience, but, par ticularly, to capture the pacing of a
Bond film. Indeed, the variety and intensity of the action in the pre-credits
opening sequence is incrediblemoving rapidly from parachuting, racing
speedboats and cars, to on-foot, r un-and-gun, and hand-to-hand combat
sequences that seamlessly incorporate cinematics.
Opening in the skies o ver A thens, the game begins with Bond
perched in the loading bay of a jet air craftparachuting onto a heav -

Gaming

n n n n

ng

(Above) On water or on land, Blood Stones digital James Bond chases down
baddies with as much zeal in the gaming world as the actors who have assumed
the coveted roles for cinema. The CG Bond (top center) was created from reference scans of actor Daniel Craig, the box-offices latest 007.
November 2010

17

n n n n

Gaming

ily defended yacht wher e G reco is closing a

deal. Bond kicks a guar d into the water as a
firefight, mixed with hand-to-hand combat,
erupts across the deck. The action unfolds in
third-person perspectiv e, making the most
of Cookes choreography and C raigs br utish
physicality; he applies choke holds, pulls off
stealth takedo wns, fires headshots with his
P99 semi-automatic, all the while diving and
rolling for cover.
Later, Bond gives chase in a speedboat, racing
through an A thens harbor clutter ed with ocean
liners and ferries. U nder fire from Greco, Bond
dodges RPG fire from a helicopter that brings a
lighthouse and other waterside buildings crash ing down amid spectacular water effects. Bond
shoots some gas tanks, bringing the chopper
down in the explosion with some amazing physics-based destruction courtesy of Bizarres newly
revamped game engine, H orizon. E ventually,
Bonds boat launches onto the pier , and a r unand-gun segment betw een par ked cars culmi nates at a yacht club mansion. nI side, Bond tosses

sequenceson r oad and on water . B izarres

Horizon engine, designed around multiprocessor har dware, pr ovides physics, lighting, and
other core technology, as it flexes its muscles in
the chaotic, physics-based destr uction accompanying the car chases through the busy cities,
as well as with the spectacular lighting effects
gracing the neon wonderland of Bangkok.

Production Design
Awe-inspiring production design has always been
a foundation of the Bond experience, forged brilliantly in the past by legendary designers like Ken
Adams in The Spy Who Loved Me and You Only
Live Twice (see Bonded on CGW.com to learn
how the dev eloper achieved a cinematic flair to
the game s cinematics.) We definitely looked
long and hard at the pr oduction design of both
Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, taking general lighting cues and feel from both. Of the two,
we erred toward Quantums production design,
feeling it was more in line with the br utal Bond
we wanted to convey in the game, says studio art

Blood Stone features expansive sets, populated with many structures and objects that facilitate
gameplay and provide cover during firefights.
Greco through a plate-glass window before realizing that his targeta bomb of some kindis
aboard a passing SUV. Bond finishes the chase in
his Aston Martin, racing through tunnels and on
a cliff-hugging, hillside road.
The pre-credits sequence is a big splash
that showcases a wide variety of interactions in
a short space of time. Pacing is so important to
any movie experience, and we wanted to apply
that to the game, says Davies. Obviously, it
calms down after that as the narrative leads the
player through the adventure with opportunities for stealth as well as high action. The driving sequences are a great way to punctuate the
story with intense, high-octane thrills, in much
the same way as they do in the movies.
This is the closest weve ever come to putting
you in the drivers seat of a Bond action-chase
sequence, says David G. Wilson, Michaels son
and Bonds marketing vice pr esident of busi ness strategy. I ndeed, B izarres experience on
Blur lent itself per fectly to Blood Stones chase
18

November 2010

director Neil Thompson. The team also kept Ms

office set the same, to show some continuity with
Quantum and to help root the game in the films
universe. By the same token, Thompson says, the
artists werent slavish to the last two films.
As an artist, the opportunity to play in the
Bond universe is an oppor tunity too good to
miss, particularly when it comes to K en Adams amazing set designs fr om the 60s/70s,
Thompson says. The group paid homage to
him in the climactic battle sequence at the
Burmese Dam in Bangkok, with areas carved
from solid r ock at a grand scale, in a nod to
You Only Live Twices volcano base. The dams
grand scale was also influenced by cathedrals.
Living in Liv erpool, the city has two mag nificent examples we looked at: par ticularly,
the Anglican cathedral, which has a touch of
Adams about it, Thompson adds. In order to
achieve a huge sense of scale and not just make
the dam another uninteresting industrial facility, the cr ew decided that it should comprise

an array of large, thin-v aulted entrance ways

with spinning fan blades abo ve, acting like
stained-glass windows as the light r eflects off
them. They also made the primary water-flow
pipes act as buttr esses, while another section
has a beautifully cur ved ceiling with the lines
accentuating other areas of the dam.
This sense of grandeur informs the player
that this is the climactic battle, as K en Adams
had done in the past, explains Thompson.
The production design was also hugely
informed b y Blood Stones cover-based game play, which the title exploits to its maximum
potential; like Craigs Bond, the player is constantly ducking behind bulkheads, pillars, and
walls. This style of gameplay depends on very
carefully planned envir onmental design. U ltimately, the main goal of the lev el designers
and ar tists is to cr eate contemporar y spaces
that function as co ver combat ar eas while r emaining aesthetically pleasing to the play er,
says lead level designer Phil Nightingale.
Combat areas need to meld perfectly within

the look of the envir onment, so the lev el de signers wor ked extr emely closely with the ar t
teams to r each the best balance, Nightingale
continues. The crew also dr ew up concept
sketches and mood boar ds early on in the de velopment cycle to create a visual guide for each
level. These boards covered all aspects of a level,
from lighting and ar chitecture, to inanimate
objects and objects intended for gameplay. Its
important that gamers can formulate a strategy
when engaged in combat encounters, and have
options on how to tackle each of the many firefights, so we made sure the placement of co ver
in these areas was eminently readable, he adds.
It was also vital that these cover objects fit visually and practically within the o verall space, so
that everything made sense and didnt break the
boundaries of an environments innate reality.

Greek Playground
According to Thompson, Athens pr oved
to be one of the most challenging envir onments to model, texture, and light because the
player transitions thr ough so many different

n n n n

Gaming

ZBrush was then used to cr eate the intricate

touches, such as the structures ornate, Byzantine details and visage of Medusa. ZBrush enabled us to get the fine details needed to show
things like cracks and crumbling in the stone,
says senior artist Derek Chapman.
Because the ar ea was undergr ound, the col umns and the r ooms had to hav e a damp feel.
To achieve this, the gr oup used basic specular
maps and cr eated two shaders specifically for
the task: The first was a flow shader , which
simulated water flowing do wn the sides of
the walls; the second was a caustic shader . The
rooms still had water in them, and the ar tists
wanted the water to cast the ripples onto the
walls and ceilings. The final challenge proved to
Bizarre Creations, with help from the mocap team at Audiomotion, generated the games brutal
be the lighting of the cisterns: They were comhand-to-hand combat moves.
pletely underground, so the lighting ar tist had
scenesthe parachute jump , the landing on
combat and drivingthey r equired two dif - to provide enough illumination for the play er
the yacht, the boat chase across the harbor, the ferent ar t sets to accommodate the v arying to see, but also retain enough shadow to suffuse
fight through the yacht club, and the final car speeds at which the play er trav els. K eeping the chamber with an ominous, murky feel.
chaseall in the space of 15 minutes. Artists those switches in art seamless was a big techniAfter A thens and I stanbul, the adv enture
used Autodesks Maya to create the majority of cal challenge. In Athens, originally all of the
whisks Bond to the polar deser t of Siberia. Its
assets and scenes, relying on Pixologics ZBrush five locations w ere par t of a seamless whole,
frigid ice-water lakes are the setting for a chase
for high-poly props and environmental detail- but it soon became apparent we couldnt store between a ho vercraft and an ekranoplan: a
ing. ZB rushs po wer is on full display inside
or pr ocess the amount of geometry, shaders, swift surface-skimming, ground effect vehicle.
the yacht club, particularly with the distr essed and light maps required, says Nightingale, so It took a long time to get the scener y scrollwalls and old buildings adorned with period
we broke the environment into three separate ing properly and with the sense of speed w e
details. Without ZBrush, we could never have loads hidden by cut-scenes.
wanted. We were basically faking [the scenery]
achieved the level of fidelity we required, says
This solved the majority of the pr oblems, to work within the tight streaming restrictions
Thompson.
but the gr oup was still left with a lighting is - of the lev el. Some assets, like icebergs crash For the yacht, however, artists wanted more sue for the first area, where Bond lands on the ing against the v ehicles, had to be sacrificed
of a hard-surface feel: cold and pr ecise, to r e- super-yacht. I ts thir d-person and, ther efore, in order to maintain the speed of the lev el,
flect the villainous owner, G reco. Therefore, required high-density light maps. The ensuing explains senior designer Matt Cavanaugh.
they emplo yed subdivision sur face modeling chase in the speedboat takes place in the same
For the hovercrafts and the ekranoplan, artfor the high-resolution models and added lots scene, which is appr oximately two squar e ists built shaders from scratch in Maya, painting
of cube maps, giving the ship a high-gloss,
miles, and memory constraints meant the ar t- textures for shrapnel damage, scratches, bullet
high-end feel that echoes Quantum of Solaces ists couldnt have high-density light maps. As
holes, and scor ching details in ZB rush. The
MI6 set. This approach, however, had rami - a result, central tech devised a solution that al- team also used Maya, along with two in-house
fications on the lighting, making it difficult to lowed the art team to vary light-map densities Maya-based toolsA ctor S tudio and D ebug
balance it with the cube maps, and r equiring on a per-poly basis. S o, in conjunction with a Viewerto perfect the gameplay in the Sibea lot of tw eaking of diffuse color, cube-map global setting for each envir onment, the team rian tundra. D eveloped for editing game data
brightness, and lighting intensity and posi - could increase the light-map detail on the yacht within lev els, A ctor S tudio allo wed B izarres
tioning, says Thompson.
set to be strong enough for a third-person cam- artists to set up all the gameplay elements withThe Athens scenes also r equired a sophisti- era without adv ersely impacting the memor y in a lev el using a 3D vie w. Debug Viewer is
cated water shader that captur ed the feel and budget. (See Wake Effects on CGW.com for a tweaking tool that exposes all the debugging
deep-blue palette of the A egeanthe ev er- details about the creation of the water and the elements in the gameincluding wir eframe
shifting shades of cobalt, tur quoise, and jade ensuing wakes.)
mode, test code for ne w featur es, tools for
green. In most games, they would just use a
overriding the sun dir ection, disabling the AI,
cube- and normal-map combination; w e ini- Worldly Sets
and so forthand lets the artists control them
tially tried that but found it looked off, and the In I stanbul, the most graphically complex
from a Windows application, whether running
scenes unfold in the Basilica Cistern, a complex console or PC versions of the game.
multitude of moor ed yachts and boats in the
of sixth centur y underground chambers sup harbor didnt look gr ounded, says technical
Bizarre wr estled with two difficult maps
effects artist Nigel M iddleman. Rather, our ported by a maze of columns. Featured promi- in B angkok: one for the r ooftop scenes and
central tech team had dev eloped a r eal-time nently in From Russia with Love, artists had to another for a section titled B angkok Escape.
reflection road shader for Blur, which we were make the cisterns a lot larger to squee ze more The most challenging thing about Bangkok
gameplay out of them. Using Maya, the team Escape was the sheer siz e of the map, and the
able to adapt for real-time water reflection.
Because A thens and the other locales in - built a few column assets that could be placed complexity and visual richness of the assets
volve two types of gameplaythir d-person around the set without looking too r epetitive. that made it feel believ able, says Cavanaugh.
20

November 2010

CGW_NovDec10_3.qxp

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n n n n

Gaming

We wanted a dir ty, unhealthy-looking en vironment, and, similar to the palette of the
opening [Bangkok] section, we pursued a proliferation of warm grays, ocr es, and soft y ellow-greens. Maps this big usually have much
more of a monotone theme. To reduce the size
of the library, the group reused some of the
core sections dev eloped for earlier B angkok
levels to pr oduce the bulk of the r est of the
level, only adding new objects in selected areas
to break the uniformity.
In slight contrast, B izarre wanted the r ooftop
level to be dark with splashes of warm colors and
harsh neons, woolen with smoke, and teeming
with rain and peopl eevoking a thick, dense
atmosphere. The artists used Maya, ZBrush, and
Actor Studio to create and orchestrate the complex animated scenes, including the people and
ubiquitous neon signage.

Choreographed Chaos
Like the lighthouse that disintegrates under
RPG fire, crashing do wn into the water in a
cloud of smoke and rubble, most ofBlood Stones
destruction is car efully choreographed, despite
most of the scener y objects having built-in
physics. A lot of the environmental destruction
unfolds in set pieces, which, says ev ents team
manager Mike McTigue, allowed Bizarre to design, choreograph, and position these events to
deliver the maximum H ollywood-style impact
one would expect from a Bond movie.
We adopted a white-bo x process to cr eate
these set pieces, meaning w e were able to test
and perfect an effect using lower-detailed versions of the models first, M cTigue explains.
Once perfected, we produced the final result.
For example, the topology of the lighthouse was
built to make it fall in a specific way, so once
we were happy with the timing, the animation

would be baked out and handed to one or more

effects artists who would then layer in elements,
such as the explosion, smoke, and debris.
To construct the sets, the team took a par tial virtual warehouse approach primarily for
elements that w ere placed using B izarres inhouse editor and within Maya itself . Warehousing all the props to be accessible for each
level proved impossible because most of them
had to be set up with damage and physics
effects specific to the surrounding gunplay and
environmental explosions. Thus, the artists
custom-built most of the pr ops for the envi ronment in which they w ere located. S ince
we had a wide v ariety of locations, ther e was
a limit to our ability to shar e assets acr oss set
construction, says Anthony F elice, ev ents
team art director.
Using SpeedTree, the artists initially tailored
the plant lifetrees, grass, and shrubberyto
be specific to each environment, but as time
went by, the cr ew realized it would be mor e
beneficial to have them designed for a global
context, which would also make them mor e
useful for future projects.

Character Creation
Bizarre r e-created each of actors models using
Maya and ZBrush, referencing scanned data for
Daniel Craig and Joss Stone. Utilizing ZBrushs
ZAppLink 3 editing plug-in, the artists projected
various reference photos of the actors onto the
head model. Afterward, they knitted together the
projections in Adobes Photoshop to form one
seamless texture. We also used various tools and
techniques in Photoshop to eradicate any lighting
information that was present in the photo r eference. We then w ent through a fur ther process
of evening out the skin tone so that it was suit able for use with our in-game skin shader , says

Nolan R owles, senior character modeler . The

main challenge in creating these textur es was
striking the correct balance between photographic and retouched details to achieve the right level
of realism while retaining a movie-star quality.
Modeled in Maya and textured with extensive normal mapping, the character meshes
varied in complexity based on their impor tance and pr oximity to the camera. A typical
enemy minion might w eigh close to 4000
polygons, wher eas one of the Bond v ariants
would typically use three times as many.
True to I an F lemings vision, the game s
characters are dressed to kill, in tailor ed suits,
gowns, and dresses, and dazzle in the glamor ous fashions on display at a ritzy par ty on the
steps of the Acropolis. Working from costume
designs b y Lindsay P ugh for Bond, M, and
Nicole H unter, modelers fashioned the cut
of each garment in M aya, and then turned
to ZBrush to r efine them with folds, creases,
and seams. We extracted normal maps fr om
ZBrush, and developed the diffuse and specular maps in Photoshop, explains Rowles.
To capture the textur e of the fabric, B izarre
coded special shaders in-house that w ere then
implemented through Maya. These fabric shaders employed micro-normal maps to bring out
the grain of the material when in close pr oximity to the camera. We also had specific
shaders for skin, hair, and eyes. All our shaders
featured diffuse, normal, and specular maps.
Some shaders also w ere enhanced with addi tional maps specific to a particular surface; for
instance, our skin shader spor ted [sub-surface
scattering] maps as well, says Rowles.
The modeling and mapping of Craigs face
turned out to be an ex
cruciatingly exacting
process, undergoing endless r ounds of iteration
in order to meet B izarres standar ds, but mor e

Effective FX
Bizarre parlayed its experience and technology into Blood
Stones high-speed chase sequences. Get behind the wheel
of an iconic Aston Martin DB5, DB9, or DBS, or a Koenigsegg,
and let the thrill ride begin.
Its always challenging to accurately model something as well
known and iconic as the DB5, or even the DBS and the Koenigsegg, says senior artist Derek Chapman, especially when youre
unable to secure detailed reference for some of the vehicles. This
situation for the new Bond game was further complicated due to
the necessary legal approval from the car manufacturers, which
want to make sure their vehicles were faithfully represented. In
one instance, Aston Martin reps requested some edits to the front
lights of the virtual DB5 featured in the game.
When building the cars, the artists made three versions of
each vehicle: one pristine, another with heavy damage, and one
22

November 2010

with light damage, along with multiple LODs for each version.
One driving sequence, in particular, features Bond gunning
his Aston Martin out of an exploding Siberian oil refineryracing
through a pyrotechnic light show with concussive blasts hurtling
toward him like rolling thunder. Whats unique about this effect
animation, says Middleman, is the fact that more than half the
level is a mammoth chain-reaction explosion, which combines object animations, particle effects, camera effects, and on-screen effects to create some of the most exciting, intense, and challenging
moments you would expect in the best Bond movies.
According to Middleman, the team worked from a white-box
design, just as it did for the pre-credit action sequence in Athens, where the artists would flesh out their ideas to see what
impact the explosive events would have on the difficulty of
Bonds escape. They would then proceed to create an array

Gaming

To construct the sets, which teemed with destructibility, the crew used Maya, along with Bizarres
in-house editor. The high-end vehicles used in the high-speed chase scenes were built in Maya and
then received the manufacturers stamp of approval.
importantly, that of D anjaq, LLC, the holding
company responsible for the Bond copyright.
For G recos henchmen and other NPCs,
Bizarre flirted with a complex system, called
The Club, that randomized several base meshes with clothing assets, heads, and textur es.
However, w e found that this was too ran dom, because ther e was as much chance for
bad aesthetic combinations as ther e were for
good ones, notes Rowles. On Blood Stone, we
wanted to av oid twins in cr owds and gr oups
but keep some control over how they looked,
maintaining everyone at a cer tain quality and
still recognizable to their archetype. The requirements for each character type depended
a lot on grouping, frequency, and the rate they
were spawned, so a global method wasnt practical, according to Rowles.
Utilizing the same cor e system, the gr oup
employed varied methods for differing situations. In some instances, the selection of assets
was more controlled, whereby complete, pr eassembled outfits and heads would be chosen,
and then given an additional level of color or
texture variation. Other scenes could afford a
more random approach, mixing tops, trousers,

textures, and heads that w ere then assembled

to be aesthetically effective.

Stunt Work
Craigs Bond is one of br utal physicality, and
that contemporary vision could only be r ealized through close collaboration with Cooke
and the motion-capture team at Audiomotion
in crafting the hand-to-hand combat for both
the in-game animations and the cut-scenes.
We would hav e a clear idea of what w
e
needed our Bond to do, and then w ed work
with Ben to get that result, says lead animator
Will Hallsworth. For example, while working
on the cover takedowns, we knew we wanted
the moves to be quick, br utal, and efficient,
and, where possible, exploit the environment.
Moreover, we needed these moves to start and
end in a cover position. This would allow Ben
to be extremely creative with his moves.
Audiomotion (Oxfor d, E ngland) acquir ed
the mocap data and plotted it onto the base
skeletons. B izarres animators then wor ked
with this data in Autodesks MotionBuilder to
create final in-game cycles. Bizarre also has its
own small motion-captur e facility consisting

of explosions, working out the source of the explosionsfrom a

flammable liquid to a missile, and so forth. Next, they would design its visual representation within Autodesks Maya, creating
interesting shapes, colors, and values, while still keeping with
the realms of reality.
Triggering the events at the right moments was very important, both to amaze the players eye and to keep the escape
challenging and thrilling, says Middleman. We used a variety
of techniques, implemented through Horizons physics engine,
to make the player feel as if the refinery was crumbling around
them. For example, wed trigger explosions that would send towers collapsing one or two seconds before the player reached
them, creating a sense of anxiety and anticipation. We really
wanted players to feel as if they needed to speed up to make
sure they wouldnt be caught in the devastation, he adds.
Once the Aston Martin has fled the refinery, driving away
comfortably with the receding refinery imploding in the rearview

n n n n

of six Vicon MX-3 cameras r unning Vicons

iQ2.5 softwar e. B izarre uses this facility for
both pr ototyping and some final captures;
animators label these animations in iQ befor e
importing them into MotionBuilder to create
final in-game cycles.
Our rigs, says lead rigger D arren Vaile,
work on the primary principle that it is better
to calculate than to store. Our rig consists of
a simple, animatable skeleton (ex cluding the
face) of about 22 body bones, augmented b y
30 finger bones. All the muscles and clothing
are calculated on the fly in-game using a combination of constraints, set-driv en keys, and
our own selection of dynamic bones.
The hand-to-hand combat and melee takedowns w ere par ticularly difficult to animate;
with two skeletons interacting so closely, the animators had to sear ch for the right connections,
weight, and timing. All told, the group authored
more than 5000 animations during the development of Blood Stone. The Bond character alone
boasts over 3000 cycles, including full-body animations, lay ered (or par tial-body) animations,
and facial animations. I n addition, Bond can
execute more than 60 individual hand-to-hand
takedown moves, all of which ar e context-sensitive to weapon, location, emotion, and direction,
and can be split up fur ther into v arious submoves for player control.
With so many animation cy cles at Bond s
disposal, the challenge was in dev eloping a
blending system to knit them together fluidly
during gameplay. Animators hav e to under stand technically what driv es the character
from a code-gameplay perspectiv e as w ell as
from a design perspectiv e, and what actions
the characters need to per form in-game. This
involves close collaboration betw een anima tors, designers, and gameplay pr ogrammers,

mirror, we would then trigger explosions far ahead, in areas you

know youd be traveling toward. These would be huge explosions visible from a couple miles away that would be still smoking and erupting once you drove past, with fireballs and debris
raining down onto Bonds car, making the player feel as if loss of
life would be imminent, Middleman continues. Maintaining this
level of intensity for so long was challenging without the level
feeling too over the top and becoming unfair.
Effects artists created the explosions for this and other scenes
with layers of particles and dynamic lights simulating the blast.
Then, they used an animated mesh with a refracted shader to
create a shockwave that visually simulates the force of the blast.
Next, using Horizons physics engine, we set the surrounding
objects behavior to react to the blast accordingly, providing
some spectacular physics-based destruction, says Middleman.
To finish off the effect, artists layered in debris and smoke, using
the particle system, to finalize the blast. Martin McEachern
November 2010

23

n n n n

Gaming

The action unfolds within several levels, from Athens to Siberia. The locales involved two types of gameplay: third-person shooter and driving.
says principal animator Kristjan Zadziuk. The
result was a ne w animation tool system that
gave animators control and visual feedback of
how their animations blended together . The
group also used a lay ering system to break up
the repetitiveness of cy cles and giv e more life
to the character . As an example, Bond leans
into turns and reacts believably to nearby bullet impacts and explosions.
A lot of time w ent into cr eating the mo vement system for Bond, making 007 mo ve fluidly and feel r esponsive to the play er control,
says Zadziuk.
Compounding the complexities of animating
close-quarter combat, the animators dramatiz ed
Bonds moves by framing with the use of heroic,
cinematic camera mo ves developed in M otionBuilder. These camera moves meant more parts
of the animation would be under closer scrutiny
by the player; we had to take extra care animating
hands, making sure we retained strong poses in
the fingers because there was very little we could
get away with, says Zadziuk.
The facial rig for Bond, Greco, and the other
actors is strictly bone-based and free of blendshapes. For the cinematics, B izarre did facial
motion-capture sessions at A udiomotion; the
artists could hav e used blendshapes for the
cinematics, but, says H allsworth, we found
that by carefully placing the bones under the
surface rather than the traditional method of
on the surface, they could be utilized more effectively for suggesting skin sliding and rolling
over bone and muscle. n
I contrast, blendshapes
always work by the most direct line. In addition, Bizarre had two systems for lip-syncing:
one for captur ed animation that applies the
correct inflection and nuances, and the second, the studios incidental in-game lip-sync ing, which uses B izarres r eal-time aut omatic
lip syncing to determine the desir ed mouth
shape based on the audio file.

The Living Daylights

Unifying the games five settings is a cold, har d
color scheme r eflecting Craigs har der-edged
Bond. We wanted quite a desaturated palette,
and to achiev e this, w e used [color look-up ta 24

November 2010

bles] as the final step in the postproduction once

the final lighting was in place, says Thompson.
To handle the lighting effects, the studio optimized its Horizon engine to take advantage of
the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 platforms. Horizon
is responsible for a v ast array of lighting tech niques thr oughout the game, including r ealtime reflection mapping, high dynamic range,
as well as a gamma-correcting rendering pipeline
that allows a v ariety of post-pr ocessing effects,
such as motion blur , dynamic color grading,
and screen-space ambient occlusion. We used
a light pre-pass systemsimilar to the one de veloped for Blurthat allows us to have a large
number of dynamic lights in the scene, says
senior programmer Mark Craig. Light pre-pass
rendering involves rendering everything needed
to perform lighting calculations in a first pass,
performing the lighting in image space, and
then compositing this during the rendering of
the main view in a second pass.
The big advantage of light pr e-pass rendering is that it decouples the shading cost of the
lighting fr om the scene complexity , allo wing
artists to incr ease the v olume of the dynamic
lights. The [pre-pass system] has many of the
same advantages of a fully deferred renderer, but
doesnt limit you to a small range of materials,
says lead programmer Oscar Cooper. With the
light pre-pass system, w e get the adv antage of
having a lot of dynamic lights, but can still have
a flexible material system. This means we can
implement specific shaders and effects when
needed. For example, we spent a lot of time on
specific materials and lighting effects to improve
the look of skin, cloth, eyes, and hair.
All the exterior scenes ar e lit b y a dynamic
sun, while some interiors emplo y dynamic
lights for atmospheric effect, most notably in
Istanbuls cisterns, wher e lanterns sway gently
and thr ow inter esting light patterns against
the walls. We also used them for dramatic
effect. In the dam level, for example, we have an
enemy guard assuming a threatening pose, while
his looming shadow is thrown large against the
wall via a dynamic light, says Cooper. While
there are also fake v olumetrics in sev eral locations, weve tried to go a step fur ther than the

traditional alpha-blended cone by adding particle dust motes for more substance.
Since dynamic lighting is memory expensive,
Bizarre was cautious in its use, but its full power
is on display in a modern B angkok aquarium.
We applied a shader to the water in the fish tank
that simulates light scattering and light shafts.
This not only gives the water a lot of depth, but
also the impr ession of a str ong light shining
into the water from above the tanks, describes
Craig. Coupled with this is a r eal-time caustic
effect, which is used on the floor and walls of
the tanks and projects out of the glass and into
the room. When you look thr ough the tanks
and up and out of the water , you can see the
lights of the r oom above refracted through the
animated water surface.

Blood Stone is Forever

Along with its physics and lighting capabilities,
the H orizon engine also featur es a po werful
weather system for real-time, atmospheric weather simulations. Using particle effects, artists could
introduce snow flurries, great slanting sheets of
rain, r eal-time dynamic lightning flashes, and
distance fog to set the mood, all of which unfold
dynamically through the game engine.
Blood Stone doesnt mark the first time a studio has turned to a video game to defibrillate
a franchise back into the public consciousness.
Last year, Rocksteadys Arkham Asylum helped
Warner B ros. catapult B atman back into
the limelight with the same commer cial and
critical acclaim as The Dark Knight (see Dark
Matter, October 2009).
At this time, MGM s lenders hav e giv en
the studio a r eprieve, extending its debt r epayment period. C raig has r eturned to wor k
on Bond 23 , with S am Mendes set to shoot
in mid- to late-2011. R egardless of the films
fate, Blood Stone should be destined to become
far more than a placeholder in the public consciousness; rather, an impor tant, lasting entr y
in Bonds storied canon. n
Martin McEachern is an award-winning journalist and
contributing writer for Computer Graphics World. He can be
reached at martinmceachern@hotmail.com.

Joseph Taylor, Animation & Visual Effects Student

Ting Chian Tey, Animation & Visual Effects Student

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Simulation

Action
and adventure
are not the rst words that typically come to mind when remembering

Grimms fair y tale Rapunz el. But then Rapunz el, the beautiful girl
trapped in a tower who lets down her hair, had not yet met the directors and writers at Walt Disney Feature Animation.
e classic stor y takes place in a to wer, but it s hard to
bring a small stor y to the big scr een, says Nathan Greno,
who dir ected the mo vie with B yron H oward. We kept
everything that people love about the original stor y and expanded the world.
Nathan and I said, wouldn t it be gr eat if it wasnt just a
small story? It could be about a girl in a room and a guy coming to visit, Howard adds, but we wanted scope and br eadth,
a great, huge adventure and smar t, contemporary characters people
could relate to. We wanted a story worthy of our crew.
As in the original story, the evil Mother Gothel locks Rapunzel
in a tower. But, rather than a prince, this modern Rapunzel meets
a dashing thief, Flynn Rider, who has escaped his pursuers by hiding in her tower. She takes control. e result, Disney promises,
is a hair-raising adventure. Seventy feet of hair, that is. CG hair. A
challenge denitely worthy of the crew.
We wanted Rapunz el to be a dynamic character , Howard
says. So, we wanted her hair to do dynamic things. She uses it as
a bullwhip, as a tool. She grabs a glass. We wanted it to get wet
and blow in the wind. When we told the cr ew, they turned
a little pale at rst. And then they said they d try to do
what we wanted. ey never said no.

Images 2010 Disney Enterprises, Inc.

26

November 2010

Simulation

For Disneys 50th feature animation,

the Tangled crew creates a CG version
of a traditionally animated lm

By Barbara Robertson
And as if cr eating, combing, and untangling 70 feet of hair w erent
enough, the dir ectors pushed the cr ew further. Mother Gothel strokes
Rapunzels hair. Characters hug. Youll notice when y ou look at other
CG animated movies that there is little interaction with hair because it s
so di cult to do, ev en brushing against a shoulder , Greno says. O ur
crew completely raised the bar. It will be fresh and new to the audience.

vised the simulation setup and the technical animation.

To help understand ho w r eal hair mo ves, the cr ew br ought in a
model with ve-foot-long hair. We had her walk, run, stand in front
of a big fan, tie her hair in a hook, Canal says. We wanted to see how
hair reacts: the weight, mass, and volume.

Hair Goes
Visual e ects supervisor Steve Goldberg led the cr ew that pushed the
technical bar higher. Weve got ev erything going on in this lm, he
says. Cloth on cloth. H air on cloth. H air on skin. H air to hair . We
have a lot of character contact in this sho w; it was integral to establish
relationships, so we said wed give it a try.
Goldberg provides an example: M other Gothel, the woman who
kidnapped Rapunzel as a bab y and locked her in the to wer, uses the
power of Rapunz els hair to stay y oung. S he has a passiv e-aggressive
relationship with Rapunz el and hugs her a number of times, sometimes around her hair , sometimes underneath her hair . And, she has
long sleeves. Traditionally, we shy away fr om characters hugging other
characters, but the dir ectors wanted to suppor t the notion that she
has a smothering, su ocating relationship in the way she would hug
Rapunzel. So, we removed a lot of r estrictions we may hav e had on
earlier shows. It was exciting.
Early in pr e-production, the team ev aluated av ailable hair-simulation tools and then decided to dev elop an in-house engine to achiev e
the degr ee of contr ol they needed. K elly Ward cr eated underlying
elements we call dynamic wir es, Goldberg says. J esus Canal super-

At left, CG characters rarely touch, especially characters with long hair

and long sleeves, but the technical crew made it possible for Mother
Gothel to smother Rapunzel in a tight hug. Above (and below), a new
simulation engine moved the blond beautys 70 feet of hair.
en, directing animator G len Keane, who had been the guiding
force behind the lm for y ears, helped the team understand what he
wanted the animated hair to do . He told us what he wanted to see
when we posed and animated the hair, Canal says. He didnt want us
to ever lay the hair out in a straight, boring line.
e technical teams goal was to be able to hit a button and have the
hair look and per form as intended: not necessarily to look r eal, but to
look believable and appealing. It worked for close-ups, but for
wide angles, when w e see the whole length of the
hair, it was not possible, Canal says.
For those shots, the animators

November 2010

27

n n n n

Simulation

other way around, Canal says. Wed simulate

the skirt and use it as a collision object that we
fit into the hair engine. For cloth, the cr ew
used an evolution of the cloth engine built for
Bolt. It worked very well, Canal says. We
had complex garments with multiple layers in
some cases, but it was fast. I t took only sec onds per frame depending on ho w many layers of cloth we had.
Goldberg describes a par ticularly difficult
cloth simulation that the cloth team was able
to handle: Its when Flynn and Rapunzel are
in the woods and something frightens her .
Glen K eane had her climb on F lynn, arms
around his neck, legs ar ound his torso . H e
drew this as a joke in dailies, but the animator
Riggers attached 173 tubes to Rapunzels head that animators and hair TDs could position and
went ahead and animated it in CG. The cloth
group into clusters. The simulation engine moved those tubes using parameters set on individual
team not only had to simulate her skir t, but
tubes or clusters, and the renderer instanced them into as many as 140,000 strands. Flynns hair and
they had to have it function in a way that was
the horses mane used the same system.
still family-friendly. Its a wonderful shot.
would put the hair into an initial pose, run the transition, animation and simulationusing
To affect the simulated motion of Rapunanimation to see how the hair performed, and settings supplied by the TDswould control zels hair in this shot and all others, the TDs
then the hair technical dir ectors would tweak the movement for v arying percentages of the set v arious parameters. The simulation enthe animation and add constraints that affect- tubes in the cluster.
gine Kelly Ward and the team built was v ery
ed the final simulation.
Low-res geometr ycubes and cylinders
realistic, but sometimes those results were not
Although Rapunzels 70 feet of hair has as
with the same volume as objects, such as chairs what we would expect to see or like, Canal
many as 140,000 strands when r endered, the and tables, that Rapunz el interacted with be - says. If the hair felt too heavy, for example, the
animators and TDs worked with a small num- came collision objects for the simulation engine. TDs would lighten the mass. A ppeal was al ber by comparison: 173 dynamic wires, which Interaction is very expensive, so the simpler the ways more important than accuracy.
looked like tubes and stretched, if necessary, the geometry the better, and the faster the simula Parameters also contr olled the interpola full 70 feet. The simulation engine drove these tion, Canal says. She uses her hair as a pillow, tion; that is, the number of hairs instanced
tubes, not the 140,000 strands. The render- to open her closet and draw ers, as a weapon. It from the 173 tubes. When we say 140,000
ing engine interpolated the tubes to cr eate the was challenging and fun. The hair TDs had to individual hairs, that s for close-ups, Canal
number of strands needed for a shot. Thanks come up with ne w ideas and ne w constraints says. For other shots, we had less.
to Kelly [ Ward], the cur ves (tubes) matched,
for how things interact with the hair.
Texture maps controlled the hairs look, colwith about 90 to 95 per cent accuracy , the
When Rapunz els hair interacted with her
or, shininess, and so for th, but lighters could
shape and volume of the hair once r endered, skirt, the crew would usually simulate her hair also affect the look using a separate set of paCanal says.
first, using the hair as a volume for the skir t rameters. When Rapunzel sings a special song,
Riggers attached the tubes, which acted
simulation. S ometimes, though, it was the
her hair has a magical glow. Her hair i s like
much like guide hairs in a typical hair simu lation system, to Rapunz els CG head. Each
tube came with betw een 30 and 40 contr ols
that the animators and hair TDs could use to
position and perform the hair, but they could
add more on the fly if needed. Or, they could
reduce the controls to five, if that was enough
for a nice smooth sway , Canal says. A dditional tools could freeze any length of hair that
didnt need to move.
The crew could also gr oup the tubes into
clusters, with all the tubes in a group following
one tubes lead, and animate ho w much the
clustered tubes would follo w the leader. We
could blend betw een animation and physical
simulation, Canal says.
If Rapunzel grabbed her hair , for example,
animators might place the hair in her hand
Animators would perform Rapunzel grabbing her hair in shots such as this, and then the hair TDs
in the appr opriate frame, and then the sim would blend that motion with simulation.
ulation engine would take o ver. To ease that
28

November 2010

n n n n

Simulation

the sun, says Dave Goetz, art director. Theres

a sense of warmth about it and about her.
The crew used similar techniques for the
other characters hair, although the animators
rarely needed to be inv olved in setting poses.
Flynn had contr ols on his front hair so the
animators could animate on top of the simu lation, Canal says. B ut mostly w e did the
other hair, even the horses mane and tail, with
simulation alone.

Disney Animation
For the other characters, the technical chal lenge was mor e subtle. The hair was obviously the big thing, but the second goal was
to make sure we raised the bar in CG anima tion, Canal says. And I think we did. Having
Glen Keane giving us notes was awesome.
Keane, who had animated such beloved Disney characters as Ariel inThe Little Mermaid, the
Beast in Beauty and the Beast, and the title roles
of Aladdin, P ocahontas, and Tarzan, helped
the team achiev e the classic Disney animation
the dir ectors lo ved. G len wanted the people
to touch faces, scratch, things like that, Canal
says. So, we took a deformer-based appr oach
for the faces and bodies that simulates muscles.
It isnt a muscle system, per se. We didnt want
a realistic look; we wanted a cartoony look, but
one thats fleshy and organic.

driven by controls. It does a lot without a lot

of input, which is good because J ohn Kahrs,
the other supervising animator, and I thought
it was the hardest thing weve ever done.
Rather than a pipeline that mo ved a char acter from modeling to rigging to animation,
for the initial setup the crew worked in character-based groups of thr ee to five people com prised of modelers, riggers, and animators.
We all wor ked together in teams fr om the
beginning, Canal says. I t was an open en vironment where we could shar e and expr ess
opinions. It was great.
The idea for character teams originated
with Bolt (see Back to the F uture, November 2008) , and Kaytis, who animated Rhino
on Bolt, agrees with Canal. Each person on
the team learned what the other depar tment
needed so well that we wouldnt have to explain
after a while, Kaytis says. I t was a gr eat process. Its funny how the po wer of five people
working on a problem is so much stronger than
one person butting his head against the wall.
That same spirit of collaboration extended
into the animation process. Historically at Disney, and this goes decades back, weve had character supervisors rather than animation supervisors, Kaytis says. B ut on this film, we tried a
different approach. We put the main characters
in the hands of the entire crew. It was scary.

Above at left, the crew referenced Disneyland as inspiration for the charming kingdom. Above at right,
special rigs designed to help animators create subtle and emotional performances, such as these by
Flynn and Pascal the chameleon, included blendshapes for micro controls.
Because the characters w ear clothes, the
crew put more resources into dev eloping fa cial rigs within A utodesks M aya that would
help the animators cr eate subtle, emotional
performances. This is an intimate movie with
lots of close-ups, Canal says. The animators
requested micr o contr ols. We added blend shapes to hit micro targets.
Even so, Clay Kaytis, a super vising animator on Tangled, describes the rigs as simple.
Carlos did a great job of distilling the mo vement of the face, Kaytis says. We work in
Maya with a system of foundation shapes
30

November 2010

One reason for using this approach was that

with dir ectors G reno (a former stor y ar tist)
and Howard (a former animator), the dir ecting animator Keane, and two supervising animators, there were already five people looking
at the animators work. So we didnt add another gate, Kaytis says. We had the anima tors take their work straight to dailies.
In dailies, Keane would pencil in his suggestions on a Wacom Cintiq, a display he could
draw on with a stylus. Glen would draw over
the animators scenes and push to make them
better, Howard says. F or those guys, it was

like a yearlong master class in animation.

The first sequence the animation team
worked on, the confr ontation between Flynn
Rider and Rapunz el in the to wer, took two
months. G len would draw so much o ver
those frames, Kaytis says, what the ey elash
shape should be, the cheeks in profile. We had
to figure out how to do this animation, to have
this girl walk around and feel for her. Everyone
just chipped away.
And, the master class continued. G len
was in dailies ev ery day , Kaytis says. H e
would stop on a pose, lean forward, and draw
over the animation. Change a head angle.
Push Flynns leg when he was leaping. Hes an
animation genius. E very day it was like, O h
my God, I cant wait for G len Keane to draw
over my stuff.
You look at mo vies from the 50s Peter
Pan, Lady and the Trampand you just know
those ar e D isney films, but you dont kno w
how to make it happen, Kaytis continues.
Ive wor ked at D isney for 16 y ears, and I
think this is the first CG film with that look.
Its a huge leap. And a huge amount of that is
because of Glen Keane.
While Keane pushed poses to make them
better b y drawing on them, the dir ectors
took a different appr oach. B yron and I
would get up and act out the scenes, Greno

says. Animation can get too broad and then

it doesnt feel r eal, especially in emotional
areas. We created this world. We want it to
be believ able. So w ed speak of things that
happen in our o wn lives. We wouldnt say,
This character is about to cry. Wed de scribe visiting someone in the hospital. People connect with that and put it into their
work. If you do the job right, these charac ters become so real. They become people.

It Takes a Village
Kaytis ev en extended this sense of cr eating
people, not just characters, to the crowds. We
did the crowds basically all by hand, he says.
We w ere stubborn about this. We wanted

n n n n

Simulation

The team animated the 36 characters in the village and the 21 bar thugs by hand rather than using
crowd-animation software and motion cycles, and every character had a unique design and personality.
The directors and animation supervisors consider the bar sequences to be among the most complex
and difficult in the film.
them to be better than any crowds in any other movie. Effects helped us with 1200 people
in the plaza, but otherwise, we hand-animated
them for the most part.
Rather than populating the village with CG
characters driven by motion cy cles and cr owdanimation r ules, Kaytis wanted to cr
eate a
town with r eal people doing r eal things. S o, he
invented little stories for each of the 36 distinct
villagers. I plotted out ev eryone in to wn every
day, he says. The guy buying fish is doing that
because he wor ks in a r estaurant, and w ell see
him in the r estaurant later. The mother and father with a son are from out of town. Theyre on
a holiday, enjoying the sights. We see the village
through Rapunzels eyes, so it has to be immer sive. CG robots wouldnt sell it. Similarly, the 21
bar thugs each had a different personality, body
shape, and design.
As he planned the shots in the village, Kaytis worked within a set designed to be charm ing, with buildings not taller than one or two
32

November 2010

stories and ev erything at a graspable human

level, as Goetz describes it.
The town was like a backstage set, Kaytis
says. You could shoot in one dir ection and
then turn the camera ar ound and find new
cubbyholes and details in the buildings. You
definitely became intimate with it. You know
the str eet corners. You kno w that this guy
works in that building. And once y ou know
all that, it makes your life easy. It became kind
of a game in a way. Definitely more interesting
than stamping five characters.
Kaytis shared the fun by giving each animator
vignettes to do. A guy fishing from a bridge. A
woman sweeping the porch. Someone picking
apples. Three students sitting on the stone steps.
It was kind of like the S ecret S anta, Kaytis
says, a cool little break from production.
If the village seems familiar as w
ell as
charming, one r eason might be that the di rectors were, according to G oetz, inspired by
Disneyland. We took pictures of everything,

he says. And, of course, D isneyland is in spired by European buildings, so w e kind of

went shopping for charm and appeal.
As with the village, the directors wanted the
environments to be cozy and charming, too .
We have very few scenes where you look out
over a huge vista, Goetz says. We cut off sight
lines by pushing trees and hills in the way.
Even within the environment, the particulate matterdust motes cr eated with particle simulation within a light rayhelped
give the space a tangible feeling. One of the
largest effects, though, was a dam-breaking
sequence. B asically, w ere using P hysbam
libraries that we have implemented and in tegrated into our pipeline for water simula tions, Goldberg says.
And, not surprisingly , Rapunz el ends up
underwater in a cav ern after the dam bursts.
We put the hair curves through a flow field,
Goldberg says. When her hair glo ws, they
can see the way out. We w ere all so ex cited
and thrilled when w e saw those tests come
through. They involved so much interaction
between the departments.
It would pr obably be a str etch to imagine
that in tr ying to cr eate a CG film that captured the feeling of Disney films from the 40s
and 50s, the cr ew also captur ed some of the
adventuresome spirit of those early days of
feature animation. But, maybe not.
With CG, you can do anything, Howard
says. And, as a result, live-action films are becoming more dazzling and eye-popping. Animation has to keep up . It has to be as amaz ing as liv e action. The action sequence in the
underground cavern, we think its the biggest
one Disney has done. It looks spectacular. We
threw down the gauntlet and the crew rose to
the occasion. They wanted to do this. They
want to make better films. And this film will
drop jaws.
Just as they kept the classic feel of the D
isney
movies from the 40s and 50s while bringing
the pacing and jokes into the contemporar y
world, the dir ectors managed to incorporate
the feeling of cr eating classical animation
within a 21st centur y, collaborativ e wor king
environment and with 21st century effects.
You hav e to understand, Kaytis says.
This whole building. Our crew. This team is
so tight no w. Its really the pr ocessthe process was the best process. To see this team grow
and step into the challenge, I couldnt be more
proud of them. n
Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a
contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can
be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net.

Seoul Skyline

The 3rd ACM SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia
Conference 15-18 December 2010 | Exhibition 16-18 December 2010
Coex Convention & Exhibition Center

A Kaleidoscope of Sights, Sounds, and Interactive Experiences in Seoul,

World Design Capital 2010!
Join Seouls citywide festival of computer graphics and interactive techniques this December.
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 is a convergence point for art, business, design, and technology, and a unique networking opportunity for the
international digital media community. If you are a distributor, creator, researcher, developer, artist, producer, educator, game developer,
filmmaker, or student, this major Asian CG conference and exhibition is a must-attend event for 2010!
Learn the latest technologies. Test-drive the industrys newest software and hardware. Discover new opportunities for collaboration with
colleagues in Asia and around the world.
Complete details on SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 programs and events: www.siggraph.org/asia2010

Computer Animation
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Secure your seats, register today at: http://www.siggraph.org/asia2010/registration

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SIGGRAPH Asia Conference Management | Tel: +65.6500.6700 | Fax: +65.6296.2771 | registration_asia@siggraph.org

Burak Canpolat
Some artists spend years of formal training and education before finding success
at their craft, while others follow a different course and learn their skills through
self-instruction. The journeys may differ, but what matters is the end result. Burak
Canpolat is a print and multimedia designer whose pathway to success falls into
the second category of self-taught professional.
I am a hard worker and always spent my time experimenting, trying to
push myself to become a better designer by matching movies, reading books
and magazines, scouring the Internet, and learning new styles and techniques,
Canpolat says.
According to the artist, a number of things have helped shape the path of
his career thus far. Born in Olten, Switzerland, Canpolat attended university in
Instanbul, Turkey, with a focus on business studies. He began working on personal
projects in 2005. I found it very enjoyable, and I discovered that I love to play
with ideas, the designer says. As a multimedia designer, he is able to create new
project ideas and tailor-make design solutions for online advertising campaigns. In
fact, he has worked in digital advertising since 2007, with some well-known digital
advertising agencies as clients, including OgivlyOne, WandaDigital, and Trafo.
For the most part, Canpolats style entails photo manipulation, collage, and illustration. To this end, he typically uses Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator running on a
Mac (with Intel Core 2). I like to play with shapes, textures, colors, brushes, and
stock photography, he says of his artwork.
What does Canpolat hope to be doing in the future? I would like to do political
and non-government organizational art in a few years, he adds. But for now he
is doing what he does well: working as an art director for a digital agency. I am
addicted to digital art, Canpolat says. Karen Moltenbrey
34

November 2010

OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

The Lost Violinist III
The Women Paint
Different Feelings II
Tattoo Girl Volume I
THIS PAGE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
The Lost Violinist I
Longing in the End of the Way
D8/Dotto (Legend)
Poor Musician
Girl and Figure
Different Feelings I

Created for a magazine, D8/Dotto (Learned)

was crafted with several colors, shapes, lines,
and light effects mainly in Photoshop. Crafted
for another publication, Longing in the End
of the Way uses various colors and textures,
along with stock photography and was assembled in Photoshop. The other images are
personal pieces, generated using collage and
illustration techniques.

November 2010

35

n n n n

Education

hen it comes to 3D education, companies in the film, TV,

and games industries are no different from their brethren
in the medical, scientific, and construction fields. Employers in our industry are looking for candidates who come out of 3D
programs ready for pr oduction, says A utodesks David Della-Rocca.
Thats their number one concern.
Della-Rocca, Autodesks Education Industry and B usiness Development Manager for M edia & E ntertainment, has a unique perspectiv e.
As a technology provider with a heavy focus on grooming the next generation of 3D digital artists, we sit in between the education and production communities. We bring these parties together to identify challenges
to the production-readiness goal and come up with solutions.
While the goal r emains consistent, the challenges of achieving it
morph at a rapid pace. Della-Rocca shared some of the issues and trends
that are top of mind for educators, studios, and Autodesk alike.
With the fast growth of 3D, theres a real need for professional development to build the instr uctor base, D ella-Rocca says. There is
also a need to better equip instructors to address industry requirements
more quickly and to update programs more frequently as things change.
At Autodesk, were always looking at ways to help educators anticipate
whats coming six months down the road so they can incorporate it into
the curriculum.

Whats That Mean?

Another challenge to turning out pr oduction-ready graduates is de fining what production ready really means. There is really no globally accepted baseline competency yet, says Della-Rocca, noting that
Autodesk is activ ely wor king with educators and
the industry to establish some measurable baseline guides.
A change in students learning styles is also
driving ne w appr oaches to 3D education.
The current crop of students learns and interacts with material very differently than previous generations, notes Della-Rocca. There is a
lot more emphasis on creating the most effective,
dynamic learning environment.
For its par t, Autodesk invests heavily in r esources,
tools, and ongoing programs to help educators deliver production-ready graduates to a hungr y animation and VFX
community. Della-Rocca emphasizes, however, that while
Autodesk bridges the two worlds, were not educators, and
were not in pr oduction. We develop tools and r esources to
complement what and how instructors teach. We provide re36

November 2010

sources to move programs along and prepare students for the production
challenges defined by our customers.
Pete B andstra, dir ector of the computer animation and game-ar ts
programs at F ull S ail University in Winter Park, F lorida, shared his
institutions appr oach to the production-ready challenge. We staff
our team with production veterans. I dont accept the adage that Those
who cant do, teach. My adage is, Those who can, teach here.
Full Sail, like most 3D education institutions, has an active advisory
board made up of industr y pros from studios like B lue Sky Studios,
Turbine Games, Raven, and ILM. That gives us a nice diversity across
visual effects, gaming, broadcast, and film, and helps us see a bit into
the future. Were able to continually bring r elevant production knowledge into the classroom, both on campus and online.
Bandstras staff also taps into Autodesks Online Education Community and suppor t materials to aid in pr ofessional development. With
programs that r un in month-long sessions, F ull Sail is able to quickly
integrate curriculum changes. If theres a new version of software out,
we can have it in students hands in 30 days.
Greg B erridge, head instr uctor of Vancouver Film School s ( VFS)
digital character animation program, offered some insights on developing production-ready graduates. An animator needs to kno w a little
bit about many things. We provide a foundation aspect that includes
modeling and texturing as they relate to animation.
Belinda F ung, a r ecent graduate of Vancouver I nstitute of M edia
Arts Visual Effects program, shares that philosophy. As a compositor
freelancing at Vancouvers Anthem Visual Effects, she found that having 3D skills made her an efficient employee. All the shots ar e done
through teamwork. Its important that I kno w 3D to be
able to communicate with artists in other departments. It saves time for the studio, and it
helps me with my own creativity.
Berridge, who started the computer
animation program at Alberta College
of Arts & Design, has been teaching
at Vancouver F ilm School for 10
years. Ive seen a dramatic change in
the student population. Theyre much
more computer savvy, and many of them
come in with some M aya experience. They
download the software from Autodesks site and
experiment with it before they get here, he says.
One of those students is Thiago Martins, a
2009 graduate of Vancouver F ilm
Schools digital character animation

Education

Schools are working hard to make sure their graduates are production-ready.
program. About a month before I started at VFS, I downloaded a Maya
trial from Autodesks Web site. I had been using 3ds M ax for years, but
I didnt know Maya. Having a chance to get to learn the inter face and
shortcuts beforehand was really useful, he says.
During the six-month pr ogram, M artins conceiv ed, cr eated, pr oduced, and finalized the smile-inducing animated short Saloon. Hes
currently working at Sao Paulo-based VFX studio Magma in Brazil.
Vancouver Film School also taps into A utodesks Subscription Service, which offers no-cost DVDs, books, podcasts, and other material
for professional development. A lot of that information seeps into my
lessons, notes Berridge. Its a great resource.
Over at Vancouver Institute of M edia Arts, Larry Bafia, vice president of faculty and business development, gives his perspectiv e: We
prepare students to be industry-ready in their areas of passion. We treat
classrooms like theyre studios. Its all about practice time and focus.
Instructors at VanArts have years of industr y cred. Many of them

n n n n

have held recruiting positions, where they were responsible for

hiring and developing animators. That gives us a great feel for
what the industry needs, says Bafia.
In terms of industr y changes impacting 3D education, B afia notes, Technology has allo wed a br oader range of anima tionanything fr om chipmunks to transformers to G ollum.
Theres nothing that cant be approached. That calls for different
animation skills. Were focused on making artists more marketable by training their eyes and teaching them to focus on solving
problems in animation.
Bafia adds: The tool sets available now empower artists to
attack any look they want. Tools are also more accessiblenot
just in terms of cost, but in the av ailability of good tutorials. The time
it takes for students to get over the learning curve has gone down. That
allows us to focus on getting them seasoned.
To aid in pr ofessional development, Bafia taps into the knowledge
base Autodesk provides. I have a real back-and-forth relationship with
David [Della-Rocca] and his team. H e sends me materials and ideas
to vet, and I get his opinion when w ere considering dev elopment in
courses, he says. It says a lot when someone like D avid, at a software
company, comes for ward and takes a personal inter est in whats going
on in education.
Coming full cir cle, VFS graduate M artins gives his perspectiv e on
what it takes to come out of a 3D education pr ogram productionready. I think you can go to any program, any course, any university.
At the end of the day, its your decision as a student to take advantage of
the time, tools, and teachers, he explains. You need to take it seriously.
Its all up to you. n

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November
February 2010

37

By GeorGe Maestri

Monitor

NEC PA271W-BK

Another feature that can be accessed fr om the contr ol buttons is

nyone working on high-end visual content will appr eciate the
importance of a good monitor.Good monitors, however, do not the picture-in-picture (PIP) feature, which can display content fr om
come cheap, and many times people will skimp on this piece of a second input on the monitor . The placement of this second input
hardware in order to get a faster machine or better graphics car
d. Often, can be configured from the standar d picture inside another pictur e,
this can be a mistake, particularly for professionals,
since seeing proper and accurate colors on the scr
een
will ensure that your work comes out as expected.
With that in mind, NEC has updated its professional LCD monitors with the goal of very high
color accuracy. The companys new PA series models offer sizes fr om 23 to 30 inches and pr omise
high performance at a mid-range price. We took a
look at the P A271W, which is a 27-inch monitor
with a high-resolution, 2560x1440 screen.
The monitor itself is fairly nondescript and
utilitarian in appearance, with a matte-gray finish.
It looks good but doesn t stand out, which is im portant for a monitor , as the wor k on the scr een
should always be front and center. The monitor is a
little bit deeper than most, though this is often the
case with higher-end monitors. Some of this depth
is taken up b y a lift-and-swiv el mechanism that
allows the height of the monitor to be adjusted and
the monitor to be r otated to por trait mode. The
bezel is not too wide at about thr ee-quarters of an
NECs PA271W monitor achieves the companys goal of extremely high color accuracy, and offers
inch, with controls for the monitor along the bot users high performance at a mid-level price.
tom right. The back panel contains two dual-link
DVI connectors and one D isplayPort connector.
Missing is an HDMI connector for linking to video sour ces, though to side b y side, or top/bottom display modes. This can be especially
an inexpensive adapter can allow the DisplayPort connector to accept handy when working with video, as the video signal can be display ed
HDMI. Theres also a USB hub built into the monitor that allows for on one monitor.
The monitor itself has a built-in ambient light sensor. When enboth upstream and downstream connections.
The controls on the fr ont of the monitor activ ate the PA271Ws in- abled, the sensor can automatically adjust the brightness of the screen
ternal menu system, which allows thorough control over how the moni- depending on the ambient light in the room. These changes were fairtor displays its images. These include the standard settings, such as white ly smooth and, more importantly, kept the colors displaying the same
point, brightness, and placement of the image on the scr een. For those regardless of whether I had the window shades open or not.
The internal workings of the P A271W ar e wher e the monitor
who need specific color profiles,
really shines. The actual LCD panel itself is a 10-bit performance
the menu allo ws y ou to choose
emulation modes, such as sR GB IPS panel, which can display up to 1.07 billion colors. To achieve
and A dobe R GB. I f y ou choose this, ho wever, y ou need a 10-bit path fr om the application all the
Pa271W-BK
the advanced settings, y ou can go way through to the monitor. This means your graphics hardware also
$1399
much deeper, accessing settings to needs to suppor t 10 bits and hav e a DisplayPort connector that can
NEC
fine-tune color, panel uniformity , supply 10 bits to the monitor. As a note, D VI connectors ar e only
www.necdisplay.com
8-bit capable. Regardless of whether you have 8 or 10 bits supplying
and response time.
38

November 2010

m
t
,

y
d

n
e

e
e

the monitor, the fact that the scr een can still
display it is important. The monitor itself has
a 14-bit lookup table, which can interpolate
colors from 8-bit sour ces to r educe banding
and improve display quality.
Setting up the monitor was fairly simple.
It can be as easy as plugging it in and install ing a device driv er. From there, its a matter
of configuring the color space that you want
and calibrating the monitor. The monitor has
several color spaces, including sR GB, Adobe
RGB, DCI, and sev eral neutral ones. I used
the Full setting, which uses the full color
space of the monitor . Anyone doing pr ofessional wor k also will want to calibrate the
monitor. I used a ColorV ision Spyder2 to
calibrate the monitor , and the calibration
program didnt have to change all that much.
Its nice to know that the monitor came with
fairly accurate color straight out of the box.
In actual use, the monitor wor ks wonderfully. The viewing angle of the screen is quite
broad, so ther e ar e no r eal dead spots. The
monitor does tend to r un a little warm, and
the excess heat vents out the top of the unit,
so be sure to give it ventilation.
In terms of resolution, the smaller 27-inch
screen combined with the higher-r esolution
2560x1440 display does lead to a smaller
pixel pitch. N evertheless, I did not find this
to be much of a pr oblem, as even small text
was fairly crisp.
However, I had a little mor e of a pr oblem with some applications that had smaller
icons in the inter face. I found it some what
difficult to position the mouse cursor over
these smaller buttons. Perhaps this is my own
hand/eye coordination issue, but those w ere
really the only times I wanted to move up to
the 30-inch screen.
Overall, the NEC P A271W is a gr eat
monitor. I t has terrific color fidelity and a
wide range of options and features that make
it ideal for pr ofessional color-critical wor k.
The one downside of this display is the price,
which is considerably mor e than the av erage 27-inch monitor. The extra features and
quality, however, more than make up for this
difference, and a good monitor can outlast
several computers. The extra investment is
well worth it. n

George Maestri is a contributing editor for Computer

Graphics World and president/CEO of RubberBug
animation studio. He also teaches Maya for Lynda.com.
He can be reached at maestri@rubberbug.com.

For additional product news and information, visit CGW.com

upgrade to Sapphire 5 for $599.

SOFTWARE

GenArts; www.genarts.com

LINUX

RendeRing

Compositing

Chaos Group Developments

Chaos Group has taken the wraps off
its V-Ray RT running on GPU, opening
the new software solution for public
beta testing to all current V-Ray RT
for 3ds Max users. V-Ray RT GPU is
integrated within Autodesk 3ds Max to
enable faster rendering and real-time
interaction with the virtual environment.
Chaos Groups scalable rendering solution offers new features, such as realtime shading and lights set-up, distributed and cross-platform rendering, and
progressive path tracing. After the beta
testing period, V-Ray RT GPU will be
incorporated in V-Ray 2.0. V-Ray 2.0 for
3ds Max will combine a V-Ray for 3ds
Max production renderer, V-Ray RT on
CPU, and V-Ray RT on GPU. Chaos
Group anticipates releasing V-Ray RT
GPU next month.

Tactic with Nuke

The Foundry integrated its Nuke
compositing application with Southpaw
Technologys Tactic asset management
solution, to improve the creative workflow
for compositors working with Nuke by
alleviating the mundane tasks associated with file management. With the
Tactic-Nuke integration, compositing
artists working in Tactic can instantly
see what their tasks are for a specific
shot, access their shot list, launch Nuke,
load the most recent version (or older
versions) of a shot, and check in a file.
This combination is designed to free
compositors to focus on creating shots,
rather than spending time on finding and
securing files, or moving files through the
production pipeline.

Chaos Group; www.chaosgroup.com

AnimAtion

WIN

VFX
GenArts Sapphire 5
GenArts, provider of specialized visual
effects software for the film, television,
and video industries, released a new
version of GenArts Sapphire for Nuke.
Industry-standard visual effects plugins for a variety of platforms, Sapphire
5 extends benefits to Nuke users as
well as those on other OFX hosts, such
as Fusion, Scratch, Toxik, Baselight,
Film Master, and Mistika. Sapphire 5
for Nuke/OFX features more than 200
industry-standard visual effects plug-ins,
including glow, blur, edge ray, defocus,
and texture tools; floating-point support;
GPU acceleration; and support for the
OFX standard. GenArts Sapphire 5 for
Nuke/OFX is now available. Floating
licenses for Nuke, Fusion, and Toxik are
priced at $2499; node-locked licenses
are available for $1699. Rental licenses
are now available for the first time, for
$169 per month. Current users may

The Foundry; www.thefoundry.co.uk

WIN

LINUX

Craft Director Studio

Craft Animations demonstrated its Craft
Director Studio software, designed to
add realistic vehicle and camera animation to film, commercial, game, and
Web-site projects. Based on research
in autonomous control systems, Craft
Director Studio is intended to eliminate
multi-step animation and design processes, such as scripting and rigging. The
software tools drag-and-drop modeling
features provide a more rapid pipeline
capable of decreasing overall production
times by as much as 80 percent.

Craft Animations; www.craftanimations.com

HARDWARE
Video
SpheroCamHDR
Spheron-VR AG recently presented
the latest version of its HDR Camera,
the SpheroCamHDR. The SpheroCam

November 2010

39

HDR can capture 360-degree, spherical images in a single scan. With 26 fstops of exposure and clarity of up to
50 megapixels, the SpheroCam HDR is
designed to capture the optimal image
quality for 3D image-based rendering.
The cameras 3D immersive measurement technology records spatial data and
enables the placement of CG objects in
virtually any location. The companys new
HDR camera is being used by such VFX
companies as The MillLondon for 3D
advertising productions and Sony Pictures
Imageworks for the production of major
Hollywood feature films.

Spheron-VR AG; www.spheron.com

Professional
services
Craft Custom Development
Craft Animations announced its Custom
Development Service for designers,
animators, educators, and engineers
who require specialized capabilities, realtime integration, or custom tool sets for
specific task completion. The new service,
employing knowledge of specialized tool
development and autonomous control
systems, delivers personalized stand-alone
solutions, add-ons, or plug-ins based on
specific customer requests. The Craft
Animations Custom Development Service
offers the following tool expansion opportunities, for example: creation of specific
animation patterns, transformation of raw
data to visual representations and animations, integration of animation capabilities
in visualization systems and game engines,
and complex rigging services. Pricing is
dependent on the scope and depth of
each request and the need for proprietary
ownership.

Craft Animations;
www.craftanimations.com

education

Workstations

Long-distance Learning
Escape Studios launched a new series of
online mentored learning courses to meet
the needs of international graduates looking to gain employment and of companies
seeking fresh computer graphics talent.
Delivered via Escape Studios e-learning
platform, the new 12-month, mentored
curriculum covers the techniques and
tools required to start a career in visual
effects, as well as provides the recruitment
advice needed to break into the CG industry. All students gain access to a virtual
classroom, where they can interact with
and seek feedback from tutors and fellow
classmates. Escape Studios mentored
learning program is integrated with social
media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and
YouTube. The secure e-learning site also
encourages students to submit assignments for grading, communicate directly
with tutors, and work together with friends
on projects. Escape Studios has opened
its first overseas branch in the USA.

Multi-core Boxx News

Boxx Technologies introduced its fastest
dual-socket workstation, the 3DBoxx
8550 Extreme Edition, to help maximize
creativity and productivity. The new workstation features Intel Xeon 5600 series
processors optimized to run at 4.2Ghz
and providing 12 cores of high-powered,
multi-tasking performance for 3D design,
animation, visualization, compositing, video
editing, digital intermediate work, and
rendering. The 3DBoxx 8550 Extreme
Edition liquid-cooled workstation is built
for multi-GPU configurations; in fact, its
seven PCI-E x16, 2.0 slots support up to
four dual-slot GPUs. The company also
introduced the 3DBoxx 4880 XXtreme
liquid-cooled workstation with a six-core
Intel Core i7 processor and four Nvidia
Quadro 5000 GPUs.

Boxx Technologies; www.boxxtech.com

inPut devices

Shapeways Add-in
Shapeways, the online marketplace that
provides access to the latest 3D printing
technologies, launched a Shapeways addin for SolidWorks 3D mechanical CAD
(MCAD) software. Using the Shapeways
tool, SolidWorks users can upload a design
directly to www.Shapeways.com and opt to
3D print it in a number of materials currently
offered by Shapeways, including stainless
steel, glass, full-color sandstone, and a variety of durable plastics. SolidWorks users
can download the Shapeways add-in for
free from the Design Solutions Web site at
www.designsolutions.nl/shapeways.

3D Mouse Support
3Dconnexions full line of 3D mice is
supported by Adobes Photoshop CS5
and Autodesks Maya 2011 and Softimage 2011. 3Dconnexions newest driver
update for Autodesk 3ds Max brings
advanced 3D navigation and control to
the design process. Using the Menu or
Panel button on the 3D mouse activates
a pop-up menu to centralize all 3D mouserelated options in one location. These
new features are now available in a free
3DxWare software update and support
3ds Max 2009 to 2011 across the entire
product line, including the Professional
Series with the SpacePilot Pro ($399) and
SpaceExplorer ($299), and the Standard
Series with the SpaceNavigator ($99) and
SpaceNavigator for Notebooks ($129).

Shapeways; www.shapeways.com

3Dconnexion; www.3dconnexion.com

Escape Studios; www.escapestudios.co.uk

3d Printing service

November 2010, Volume 33, Number 11: COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD (USPS 665-250) (ISSN-0271-4159) is published monthly except in August (11 issues annually)
by COP Communications, Inc. Corporate offices: 620 West Elk Avenue, Glendale, CA 91204, Tel: 818-291-1100; FAX: 818-291-1190; Web Address: info@copprints.
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40

November 2010

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