The RMCAD Students Siggraph Adventure

Really quick (because I’m running low on battery!), I spent some time in the Job Fair and the Main Exhibit today.  The Job Fair was nice, smaller than I expected and pretty crowded.  Lots of people looking for that dream job. 

 The main exhibit was great.  At first it didn’t seem as huge as everyone makes it out to be.  But the more I walked around and saw the HUGE vareity of people, products and services the more turned around I got.  After a few hours I had pretty decent headache (and a much lighter wallet…damn Maya DVD’s…)

It was good times, we’ll be spending more time there over the next couple days.  But I think I’ll keep my credit card locked up in my luggage…must….not….spend….money….

Just got out of the Shrekology special session.  It was a really entertaining discussion about the evolution of the Shrek franchise.  There where a lot of clips from from the Shrek series, which was great because the audience really got a chance to see how much progress has been made from film to film and just how far the capabilities and characters have come come from Shrek 1. 

 The panel gave a demonstration of a storyboard artist pitching a scene (absolutly hilarious, in a good way!).  Then they reviewed the creation of the character designs through clay modeling (”clay is good”).  There seemed to be a large focus on how valuable a role analog creation like pencil to paper and clay can be even in a modern project.  I liked that a lot. 

They also talked about the animation process for each character.  Shrek was tough because he was a heavy character that needed alot of weight, but they had to balance that with keeping his energy up.  Donkey was fun, basically they would animate his head and his body would follow from that.  Fiona presented some issues to the mostly male animation crew and Puss had so much personality he was a joy.

They showed many of the keys from the art dept, and talked about how that informed the lighting process and they talked about the impact that global illumination made on the production as well.

 Finally the panel wrapped up with a lengthy discussion on on the effects process.  On each one of the Shreks the effects team rethought their process’.  Fire, which was a major focus, was never done the same from film to film, and it is only with Shrek  3 that the crew found a process that they truly seemed to deem worthy.

 It was a fun panel, lots of lively discussion and plenty of Shrek clips which is aways a good thing!

We also got a a chance to check out the Guerilla Studio and Fjorg. 

 The Studio was good times, Jen and I got a lenticular picture taken of us, and then signed up for using a motion capture system on Thurs.  It looks like theres alot of fun activities down there, including a digital drawing cirle, and a few different 3D scanners that people can play with.  I’ll have to stop back by there later in the week.  Thurs. morning we have out appointment for the Mo-Cap.  They will film us for an hour, we need to decide what we want to act out.

FJORG was looking like alot of fun.  Teams of animators where given a non stop 32 hour period to create the best animation centered around one of two themes; a great escape or a fate worse than death.  We stopped by to take a look, all the animators looked focused on completing thier task.  The conference crew on hand where busy providing refreshements and enterainment (they started showing Shrek while we were there.)

Looks like a good time, the awards ceremony for Fjorg is tonight, I’ll post about that later on.

Yesterday morning three of us hit the Surfs Up: The Making of an Animated Documentary.  I have to admit…I haven’t seen this flick yet.  But I’m dying to see it now after listing to the panel talk about thier motivations and the processes behind this film.  The panel pointed out that they saw this as “a chance to go outside the norm.”

They first discussed the research process, talking about a few of the surfer movies they studied; Second Thoughts and Step into the Liquid.  Rob Bredow even spent some time assisting the producer of Step into the Liquid with a new production.  The whole crew also spent a day surfing and hit the Penguin Encounter at Sea World.

They then discussed some of processes they focused on to recreate the look of a documentary in an animated feature.  They worked specifically on time manipulation through recreating high speed photography, step printing, and ramped speed. 

Next they developed a new process of filming involving a live action camera.  It was basically a motion capture of the camera, they created the 3D enviroments with characters then “filmed” it by wiring a system into a real camera.  A cameraman stood in the middle of a room and watched the scene through the viewfinder and filmed it like it was a real live set.   It was an awesome process to watch and added a lot to the film. 

They also discussed how they used stock from Spider-Man 3 to recreate that grainy film look.  And they discussed the produciton cycle (60 animators divided into four teams), talked about how all the characters share the same topology, about how all the voice actors where recorded together and about the animation process.

The animation process, specifically in regards to the waves, dominated the rest of the production.  They talked about how the waves where created essentialyl using a character rig, and about how much research and effort went into creating these waves.    It was a daunting process and the panel admitted there where some concerns over whether wave recreation could be done to the standard they where reaching for.  But they more than pulled it off.

It was a great panel, well worth half a day.  Oh and when you watch Surfs Up, keep an eye out for the hidden flying saucers in the background.

Later!