On The Green Carpet: Up Hollywood Premiere

The Up Hollywood Premiere was held earlier today at Disney’s El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California.

Up "insider" on Twitter, @gossUP_girl tweeted through the whole experience. We’ve compiled a guided tour of the festivities based on these updates; please click on the links to view relevant pictures.

First and foremost, Hollywood Boulevard had to be cleared for decorations (such as this "foating" Up house) and the green carpet! Yes… green!! Before the screening jugglers, stilt walkers, and other performers were seen doing their thing among Carl, Russell and Dug, even the Aflac/Up NASCAR was there!

Don’t forget the VIPs and stars! Guests at the event included the marvelous crew of Up (seen here crossing the street to get to the premiere) including Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jonas Rivera, Michael Giacchino and John Lasseter! The group was presented with this awesome Up house made of chocolate! More Pixarians were there, but unfortunately no pictures of them are available at the moment.

The cast of Up talked to the press and were happy to be attending. Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Delroy Lindo, Elie & Pete Docter and the rest of the voice talent were happy to celebrate the occasion. Of course, Pixar’s good luck charm, John Ratzenberger, was there too! Other special guests included Jeff Garlin, Patton Oswalt, Jon Voight, Justin Chambers, Melissa Joan Hart, Blink 182, Barbara Eden, Tia Carrere, Mimi Rogers and Eve Plumb among others.

It seems the premiere was a huge success! Look out for possible extended coverage in the next few days.

Designing Up/Inside and Out

Playing with shapes, studying overweight dogs, visiting the zoo, those are just some of the diverse activities that describe production research on Up!

The New York Times is running an article, Designing Up, featuring director Pete Docter and production designer Ricky Nierva discussing the film’s "simplexity." The team talk about each of the main characters and some facts on how the Up team came UP with them. For example, Carl and Ellie’s design center on squares and circles, in fact, pictures of the couple together feature a square frame and a circle matte. Russell was designed to be simple, but with simplicity comes complexity, at least when CG is involved. His clothing was challenging in particular because of the many overlapping layers. Don’t forget Dug and Kevin, for these two odd animals the team researched all sorts of creatures. From the rare, iridescent Himalayan Monal to an overweight Labrador/Golden Retriever mutt.

You can read the article here. Don’t forget to play the interactive feature, "Inside and Out", that compliments the piece. The feature includes recordings of Docter and Nierva talking about the characters; illustrated with concept art and fully rendered stills! Speaking of art, we’ll be reviewing The Art of Up soon.

Katakune’s Journey

We have a released a free e-book on our journey in creating the award winning animated preschooler series Katakune from scratch. This was first published in the Go Motion Animation Magazine in February 2009.

In it we talk about how the concept was conceived, how we went about raising funds, what USP (unique selling points we devised), our production techniques and more.

We hope that by sharing this e-book we would be able to inspire budding creators and studios to create their own cartoon properties.

Katakune’s Journey

(right click and save)

The Way of the Weird; a look into how Autodesk's Softwares were used in the pipeline of Monsters vs. Aliens

DreamWorks Animation SKG uses Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Lustre software to author and produce in stereoscopic 3D for the animation film Monsters vs. Aliens.

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

Paragraphs:

Summary
Challenge One: Creating in Three Dimensions
Challenge Two: Lighting in Three Dimensions
Solution One: Autodesk Maya
Solution Two: Autodesk Lustre
The Result


Summary

It’s still the same old story. Boy meets girl, girl gets hit by toxic meteorite, instantly grows to 49 feet and 11 inches tall, meets weird monsters, and saves world from alien invasion. Well, that’s the story behind Monsters vs. Aliens anyway, the latest animated film from DreamWorks Animation SKG. Monsters vs. Aliens is the first DreamWorks film to be completely authored and produced in stereoscopic 3D, and it will certainly not be the last. DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has already let it be known that all future DreamWorks films will be made this way. To hear Stereoscopic Supervisor Phil Captain 3D McNally (we know…but that is the full name on his California driver’s license) and Production Designer David James tell it, it means Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® Lustre® software will have prominent roles in the DreamWorks production pipeline.

Challenge One: Creating in Three Dimensions

"Authoring in 3D is entirely different from creating 3D in post," says McNally matter-of-factly. "When Jeffrey Katzenberg made it clear that 3D authoring would be a top priority for DreamWorks' future projects, we knew we had to figure out which tools we’d need for future projects."

To determine their future tools, the DreamWorks Animation team looked to their not-too-distant past. A particularly action-packed sequence from the Academy Award®-nominated Kung Fu Panda (2008) was unearthed and reauthored using stereoscopic 3D. Says McNally, "We literally had to go back to the drawing board and reinvent how it would have looked if it had been authored in 3D. We then made comparisons between the two versions in order to plan our approach to Monsters vs. Aliens. We also knew that, to create this way in 3D, it was absolutely essential that our artists be able to see exactly how things should look in 3D space. The only place we can do that is inside Maya."

A challenge more specific to Monsters vs. Aliens, however, came with the multitude of tricky characters that would need to be fully authored in 3D.

"If you want a character to look really good in 3D, to not appear as cardboard cutouts or overstretched freaks, you need to give them just enough room to maneuver without overwhelming the viewers’ senses," McNally explains. "With 3D lenses that are perhaps 35 millimeters long, you often run into situations where you need a great deal of depth to make the characters look round and realistic. That depth can become very uncomfortable to the normal human eye."

If this all sounds like a lot of work to make sure audiences receive every conceivable angle of a brilliant cockroach, a blue blob, a missing link, an immense insect, and a freakishly tall woman, bear with us. You’ll soon see that stereoscopic 3D (S3D) isn’t just for sight gags anymore. Authoring for S3D is making the medium evolve into a fully fledged storytelling tool—and when S3D serves the story, it will be generally accepted by audiences. And in this business, when something is accepted, it’s expected.

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

Challenge Two: Lighting in Three Dimensions

The challenges of 3D authoring are slightly different for DreamWorks Production Designer David James than they are for McNally, but no less daunting. Don’t forget that this is, in many ways anyway, a new way of working.

"It’s like camera, action, lights!" says James succinctly. "In our production pipeline, we effectively shoot the movie before we light it. We do lots of set planning and other preparations to ensure we have a good idea of where we’re going, but the lighting process is an amazingly involved creative, technical, and iterative process, requiring a great many lighting teams to get the job done."

"Our lighting teams really have to act as high-end compositors, technical directors, and digital lighters when all is said and done," James continues. "With so many different people working, there are frequently shot-to-shot lighting disparities. Fortunately, we have Autodesk Lustre, which helps us look at the entire lighting, color correction, and the S3D transitions holistically, and then make radical and significant changes in real time. It is, without a doubt, the best tool that I have ever had access to."

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

Solution One: Autodesk Maya

As much as they like their Autodesk tools, however, McNally and James have both taken a decidedly hands-on approach to getting precisely what they need out of Maya and Lustre, respectively.

Says McNally, "We’ve developed tools in Autodesk Maya to measure distances in a scene and then translate those distances into pixel separation, which is how the stereo effect is created in the theater. We use a multirig system, where we’re able to treat the primary character in a shot individually, giving it the full stereo effect for realistic volume and look, but dialing back the stereo on other peripheral characters."

"So, we set up one stereo rig for our main characters, another for more peripheral characters and elements, and maybe even a third rig for foreground elements, and composite it all together into a scene that is both realistic and manageable to the human eye," McNally continues. "Again, to set all of that up, we need to be able to see exactly what we are doing in 3D space. Compare it to driving a car—you need to be able to see outside the car windows as you’re doing it. This is information we need to know before we render. The only place we can do that is inside the 3D viewer in Autodesk Maya. We can manipulate on-the-fly and animate elements as well as we go along."

More specifically, the radically differing size of the soon-to-be-beloved characters in Monsters vs. Aliens meant many of the challenges facing McNally’s team involved relative perspectives.

"The main challenge on the film has been one of scale," says McNally. "Our main character is a 49-foot-11-inch woman, Ginormica, and another is a 350-foot insect. When you consider that the rest of the characters are pretty much normal size, you can see that composing over-the-shoulder shots with such immense characters will be a challenge. In the end, however, 3D added a nice dimension to those shots. There’s a scene between Ginormica and her normal-size boyfriend, for example, that gave us the opportunity to really use the stereoscopic technique to move her back into the screen, while having the boyfriend more out in the personal space of the theater. That scene is a perfect example of how 3D can really amplify whatever is going on in a scene."

Solution Two: Autodesk Lustre

Separating out elements for special attention is also very important for James and his production design team. With large lighting teams, iterative processes, and often daunting schedules, it is all but inevitable that there will be a wide variety of lighting treatments to both characters and scenes. The teal-blue, viscous character of B.O.B. (short for Bicarbonate Ostylezene Benzoate), for example, is described by James as essentially "a collection of the physics of light" holding seven or eight completely separate rendering qualities and layers within his jiggly recesses.

"With the four channels available in Autodesk Lustre, we can isolate characters, backgrounds, matte paintings, and visual effects," says James. "We can easily add shadows, perform color correction, and add visual depth or the perception of atmosphere. It’s not just pulling a key off of luminance or a color; we can actually work entirely within a matte. We can work with an entire sequence of an animation, all at once and in real time, going shot by shot through the sequence to adjust inconsistencies in the backgrounds and characters. In Lustre, the inconsistencies can be corrected almost as quickly as I notice them. That is incredibly valuable, especially in stereoscopic work."

James also uses Lustre to remove stereoscopic "ghosting," an issue that occurs with stereoscopically deep shots employing a great deal of contrast, and where the individual left and right viewpoints leak light into each other. Using Lustre, a supplementary matte can be inserted behind the areas where the ghosting is most pronounced.

Monsters vs. Aliens ™ & © 2009 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

The Result

Now that Monsters vs. Aliens has released, you might expect "Captain 3D" McNally and "Dr. Color" James to be putting away their tights and capes for a bit, but alas, there is no rest for the talented, even in a challenging economy. Katzenberg announced that all the company’s animated films will be authored in 3D going forward, which means plenty more work for people like McNally and James. DreamWorks Animation SKG is already at work on How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek Goes Fourth, both of which will draw all of us closer still to a much deeper experience at our local theaters. And no matter what happens along the way, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Lustre software will be there to help out.

2DArtist Magazine May 2009 Issue - Available Now!

The May 2009 issue of 2DArtist Magazine is now available - click the image for more information or visit 2DArtist Magazine to find out what's in this month's magazine, and to view the Lite version for free!



Welcome to our issue of beauties and beasts. Within the pages of this month’s magazine, you’re going to stumble across the devilishly handsome and the beastliest beauties, as we have packed 2DArtist with stunning content across the board, with contributions from Don Seegmiller, Kekai Kotaki, Nykolai Aleksander and many, many more. And to illustrate the theme of “beauties and beasts” for us quite perfectly this month, we have our first artist interview with 2D artist veteran, Don Seegmiller (p.7), whose portfolio demonstrates a range of stunning realistic character portraits, to weird and wonderful cartoon illustrations. We’ve also interviewed cover artist, ArenaNet concept art lead Kekai Kotaki (p.23), who continues the theme exceptionally with his inspiring character concepts that will, quite simply, blow your mind. So there you go: 28 pages of stunning art by two of the industry’s greats – enjoy!

This May issue also presents the penultimate parts of not one, but two of our fantastic tutorial series: Vehicle Painting by Dwayne Vance and Hoi Mun Tham, and Space Painting by Chee Ming Wong. But do not fret, for we’re on the case and we have lined up for you some real treats for July. And because I’m not really one to keep a secrets (oops), I’ll let you in on what’s to come … First up, we have a series that we’re all really excited about here at 2DArtist: Dynamic Characters – Enhancing your Character Concepts. We have some great names working on this series already, with more to come! And for all those budding artists out there who follow 2DArtist but have not quite got the hang of painting in Photoshop just yet, we’ll be bringing you a Beginners Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop in July, with another top artist signed up to teach you all they know and how to get started. So no excuses! I think we’ll even find some twitching Wacom tablets in the office here once the series kicks off, as we can’t wait to learn some tips from this pro. But back to this issue, we are of course sad to see the last but one of two of our series, but what great chapters they are! Chee Ming Wong is mining the asteroid fields (p.95), whilst Dwayne Vance is driving his sleek, futuristic vehicle into the desert sands in the final rendering of his awesome car concept (p.75). Not only this, but we have the talents of Nick Oroc and Nathaniel West in the Speed Painting tutorial section this month, where they both fight out the theme, “The sleepy village never saw the horror approaching” (p.85). And, as an extra special treat for you all, we have a bonus article from Nykolai Aleksander where she discusses the anatomy of a painting, using a new painting created especially for this article to demonstrate, so do check that out and get yourself inspired (p.109)!

What else? Well, we’re talking centaurs and cyclopses in the Stylised Challenge section; our centaur entries blew us away – one of the best challenges yet (p.61)! Follow those beasts with another two stunning beauties in our Making Of section, by Sara Biddle (p.119) and Dmitry Grebenkov (p.125) – one a realistic character portrait, the other a stylised beauty. And wrap up this month’s ever-so-chocker issue by checking out Ivan Kashubo’s sketchbook on p.39, and discovering some real treats from Loic Zimmermann and Cynthia Sheppard (plus more) in the Gallery.

Enjoy! -- The 3DTotal.com and 2DArtistmag.com Team

« First GeForce GTX 295 Single PCB Direct2D: 2D Drawing APIs in Windows 7 » May 15 2009 MSI GeForce N260GTX Lightning 1792MB is Hot and Loud! Posted

This GeForce GTX 260 (with 216 shader cores) from MSI is cooled by the Twin Frozr, a GPU cooler with five heatpipes, dual slot heatsink and two big fans. From the name and the images, this GPU cooler seems to be really efficient but the reality is different. When the GPU is stressed, the cooler is loud: 52db! Unbearable! But besides being noisy, the cooler seems to have some difficulties to do its job:

When the video card is stressed by FurMark, the temperature reaches 100°C, which is a very high temperature for a GPU. One possible explanation is that the graphics card is pre-overclocked by MSI, and that explains such a high temperature.

RED GIANT STUDIOS Announces its 1st Animated Film

RED GIANT STUDIOS ANNOUNCES ITS 1ST ANIMATED FILM, THE WAY TO HEAVEN

The CG-animated short film will wrap all production in Summer 2009

Red Giant Studios, LLC., a new animation and visual effects studio founded by Dalton Grant, Jr and Cindy Rangel, announces its plan to release it's first CG-animated short, The Way To Heaven, in July of 2009.

The film is the result of the collaboration between Red Giant Studios and that of Guilin Jieli Digital Animation, an offspring company from the founder of Jieli Publishing, which is one of the largest children's book publishers in mainland China. The Way to Heaven, which is Directed by Dalton Grant, Jr and Co-Directed/Executive Produced by Mier Tang, is a film for all ages and, though the story is rooted in the beautiful, Chinese region of Guilin, the message is global. The Way to Heaven is the result of a small group of highly-talented Chinese and international artists

(some of which having worked at some of the largest studios in the field) that came together to create a film that would not only be shown on a world stage but would help to represent a new standard in Chinese animation.

The two companies officially began work on the project in May of 2008, when production was green-lit by Guilin Jieli Digital Animation and Red Giant Studios officially opened its doors. However, the project has been in development since June 2007 when Dalton and Mier first discussed the possibility of such a venture. “Since the beginning of this film, our initial idea has always been to not just have a pretty film but, most importantly, to have one that tells a good story and this myth, in particular, just felt like the right story for us to do as our first project” says Dalton Grant. Upon its completion this summer, the film will be traversing the international festival circuit.

Currently, a teaser trailer for the short can be viewed on Red Giant Studios' website, www.redgiantstudios.net. Also in the works, Red Giant Studios has another short film in its pipeline and is currently in the process of developing its first feature-length film.

Thea Render Announces New Commercial Renderer Release Schedule

Greece (May 15, 2009) - Thea Render is pleased to announce their new commercial renderer. Thea Render comes from the effort and experience of many years and it has a rich set of strong and innovative features. Particularly, it is a rendering system that can produce both photoreastic and unbiased images, thus it is appropriate for users of various different "schools", such as architects, illumination engineers, artists, illustrators and gamers.

Thea Render is a new physically-based renderer with the unique ability of producing both biased and unbiased photorealistic renders, using state-of-the-art and in-house developed techniques. It comes with a rich set of standard and innovative features, a powerful material layer system never seen before in another renderer, and its own advanced standalone studio.

For more information please visit: www.thearender.com/

Bournemouth's NCCA launches Games Animation, Animation Arts courses

The National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) at Bournemouth University is proud to be launching two new undergraduate courses.

BA (Hons) Computer Games Animation and BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts will join the already highly-renowned BA (Hons) Computer Visualisation & Animation in the Centre's suite of undergraduate courses.

Ranked as number one in the UK in the 3D Training Directory by 3D World magazine, the NCCA is enthusiastic about expanding its undergraduate portfolio.

Steve Hubbard, Associate Dean said, "These new pathways will be commencing in the NCCA's 20 th anniversary year, and will build upon the strong foundations of its success in its first two decades, to continue to innovate and progress into its third decade".

While both the courses can lead to a wide range of careers in computer animation, each course focuses on a particular aspect of the industry.

With specialist units in programming, maths and systems in computer games, BA (Hons) Computer Games Animation (2010 entry) will create graduates who are particularly suited to careers such as Technical Director/Artist in Computer Games Production.

BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts (2009 entry) contains specialist units in art practice, visual studies and aesthetic theory, and graduates will be especially suited to roles such as director, environment artist, concept artist, character animator or compositor.

The NCCA also offers masters courses in MA Digital Effects, MA 3D Computer Animation and MSc Computer Animation and Visual Effects. It achieved a research grade 5 in the latest national research assessment exercise and is internationally renowned as a leader in the research of Computer Animation.

Related links:

• BA Computer Animation Arts
• BA Computer Games Animation
• BA Computer Visualisation & Animation
• MA 3D Computer Animation
• MSc Computer Animation and Visual Effects
• MA Digital Effects
• NCCA

More at:http://media.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/news/2009/apr/ne005_ncca_launches_new_courses.html

Kung Fu Panda class at Gnomon

The Making of: Kung Fu Panda | May 12th, 2009

Thursday, May 28th, 2009
6:00 p.m. — 9:00 p.m.

Special Guest: Markus Manninen,
Visual Effects Supervisor of “Kung Fu Panda”

A presentation of the visual strategies, the production approaches used, and the execution of “Kung Fu Panda”. Learn how the film was shaped from early pre-production to final execution through the Visual Effects Supervisor’s point of view.

Presenter:

Markus Manninen
Visual Effects Supervisor
Markus Manninen, VFX Supervisor currently wrapped on the 2008 DreamWorks Animation, Academy Award Nominated Feature Film, “Kung Fu Panda”. He is in pre-production as VFX Supervisor on a “soon to be disclosed” 2013 DWA release.

Markus grew up in Stockholm, Sweden, and later attended Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm (M.Sc.E.E) and the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. While studying in Massachusetts, Manninen was introduced to computer graphics animation and soon developed a passion for it; he continued to pursue his career choice when he returned to Sweden. His first job in the field was as a project manager for the Media Laboratory at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology.

He then began working as a freelance animator in his hometown, soon launching his own company. He then segued to the position of CG supervisor at the studio Filmtecknarna. Relocating to London, Manninen went to work for Framestore CFC as head of 3D commercials. His first motion picture credit is for the vampire/werewolf thriller “Underworld,” serving as a digital effects artist.

And also for DWA Markus worked on the animated film “Over the Hedge” as CG Supervisor and consulted during pre-production of “Bee Movie.”

Event Details:

When: Thursday, May 28, 2009
Meet & Greet: 6:00PM
Presentation: 7:00PM – 9:00PM
Place: Gnomon School of Visual Effects
1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90038

This event is FREE of charge!

Please visit the Gnomon Store – extended hours during special events.

More at:http://www.gnomonschool.com/?p=348