But I think I am coming up with a "what if". What if the pop culture movie roles were ancient demons like in Wrath of the Titans? This one is the gym coach.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Today's BrainFart
Greetings! Not sure what I am doing... But the fact that I am doing is proof that I am doing something. I I spent several hours storyboarding the other day. So far I have a dream sequence that has me intrigued. I don't know its context.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Updates!
Updated my profile pic for LinkedIn and Vimeo. Wanted to do something funnier than a plain portrait, but no so weird it would turn people off or be distasteful. Here I am eating a burrito. Why overthink it?
I've also updated my Showreel with a supplimental Character animation reel.
I started working on an image. I don't know where to go with it. I think I'll set it aside for another time. I'll have to put up some more finished art or animation next time around.
I started working on an image. I don't know where to go with it. I think I'll set it aside for another time. I'll have to put up some more finished art or animation next time around.
Friday, October 7, 2011
More Thoughts on 3D Cinema and Stereoscopic Conversion
This morning at Special Agent, we had a nice visit from our old lighting director from Wildbrain. In animation terms, he is the person who puts the lights into a 3D scene, renders it out into many passes and composites together, giving you the final image you see. Lately he has been doing lot of work in stereoscopic conversion. Naturally, I had lots of geeky questions to ask him regarding the process and the state of this new industry.
The process can be broken up into two parts, both of which are dreadfully tedious. The first part is building geometry in a 3D application that approximates the scene on screen. The resolution of these models tends to be very low. For a human face for example, you can get away with a simple head shape with indents for the eyes, and a few points pushed forward for the nose. Sounds like not too much trouble for one frame, but they have to move this geometry around for each frame to track its movement. The movie image is essentially projected onto the scene through the camera to give you your stereoscopic image. But now you have a new problem with the stuff going on behind your character. Your left eye sees around the left side of his head. Your right eye sees a little around the right side. In short, you're seeing more visual information than there exists on that frame of film. This is where the second part comes in.
Artists have to go in and digitally paint in all that missing information by hand. Sometimes it can be grabbed from another frame where the character is standing elsewhere. Sometimes you can "rubber stamp" it from another part of the frame. Sometimes, you just have to make it up.
It would be an understatement to say that converting a film into stereoscopic 3D is a lot of work. There are tricks and tools being developed to speed up the process for an artist, but like any production process, only so much can be automated. To movie executives, it is not seen as an artistic endeavor, but as a magic button that converts a film several months and millions of dollars later. The new demand has sprouted new studios in countries where labor is cheap. Hungry for contracts, they are agreeing to do it for less and less. The quality of the work being produced is suffering and going largely unnoticed by the untrained eye.
It saddens me to think that this new industry that has such amazing potential is in a race to the bottom. I see the shrinking budget trend happening over the last few years in the animation industry. But when I look back to the early 90's when animation bounced back from the desert wasteland that was the 80's, I have some faith that more avatar-like movies will clearly spell out to viewers and investors what real money can buy.
On a side note, I also learned that about half of the live-action shots in Avatar were converted from 2d due to some shots looking too flat, or spoiled with light artifacts.
The process can be broken up into two parts, both of which are dreadfully tedious. The first part is building geometry in a 3D application that approximates the scene on screen. The resolution of these models tends to be very low. For a human face for example, you can get away with a simple head shape with indents for the eyes, and a few points pushed forward for the nose. Sounds like not too much trouble for one frame, but they have to move this geometry around for each frame to track its movement. The movie image is essentially projected onto the scene through the camera to give you your stereoscopic image. But now you have a new problem with the stuff going on behind your character. Your left eye sees around the left side of his head. Your right eye sees a little around the right side. In short, you're seeing more visual information than there exists on that frame of film. This is where the second part comes in.
Artists have to go in and digitally paint in all that missing information by hand. Sometimes it can be grabbed from another frame where the character is standing elsewhere. Sometimes you can "rubber stamp" it from another part of the frame. Sometimes, you just have to make it up.
It would be an understatement to say that converting a film into stereoscopic 3D is a lot of work. There are tricks and tools being developed to speed up the process for an artist, but like any production process, only so much can be automated. To movie executives, it is not seen as an artistic endeavor, but as a magic button that converts a film several months and millions of dollars later. The new demand has sprouted new studios in countries where labor is cheap. Hungry for contracts, they are agreeing to do it for less and less. The quality of the work being produced is suffering and going largely unnoticed by the untrained eye.
It saddens me to think that this new industry that has such amazing potential is in a race to the bottom. I see the shrinking budget trend happening over the last few years in the animation industry. But when I look back to the early 90's when animation bounced back from the desert wasteland that was the 80's, I have some faith that more avatar-like movies will clearly spell out to viewers and investors what real money can buy.
On a side note, I also learned that about half of the live-action shots in Avatar were converted from 2d due to some shots looking too flat, or spoiled with light artifacts.
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Lion King and some thoughts on 3D cinema
Last night I went to see the Lion King in 3D at the theater down the street. Lots of critics and filmmakers think of 3D as a gimmick to jack up movie prices. I recently saw Harry Potter and Captain America in 3D, and in those cases I certainly understand the gripes. All those movies converted from 2D look like a bunch of people are standing behind the screen pushing and pulling. I would compare it to the colorized black and white films that look like some gross Andy Warhol experiment. However, I love seeing 3D animated films, and live-action originally shot in 3D. You are seeing actual depth, instead of a depth artists' interpretation of it.
The Lion King in 3D is a very interesting mix of the two. Disney unarchived all the digital files and spread the layers in true 3D space. They also did an amazing job of giving dimensionality to the flat characters, something that really has to be seen. It is fortunate that the animators paid such great attention to the volumes in their drawings, making the illusion very effective. Of course there are some bits that I could scrutinize about, like lion whiskers appearing to be painted flat onto their faces. It makes me wonder what Disney could accomplish if they were to make a new 2D feature from the ground up with these details taken into account.
One thing that kind of breaks the 3D illusion for me is the frame rate. In all 3D movies, I am more aware of the low frame rate of film compared to the refresh rate of my own eyes. Traditional animation on 2's looks even more odd to me. I would really love to see a 3D animated film at a full 60 fps. Not achievable with film, but with the digital projection nowadays, it is technically feasible.
I would recommend for anyone who enjoyed the Lion King to see it in 3D. It is a just a beautifully made film. It had always bothered me the plot is basically a kung-fu movie, where instead of spending years training, Simba eats bugs and becomes a hippie. The whole vengeance thing doesn't really come across. But the fans have spoken with their wallets, and I hope that this opens more doors to the potential of stereo 3D in the movies.
The Lion King in 3D is a very interesting mix of the two. Disney unarchived all the digital files and spread the layers in true 3D space. They also did an amazing job of giving dimensionality to the flat characters, something that really has to be seen. It is fortunate that the animators paid such great attention to the volumes in their drawings, making the illusion very effective. Of course there are some bits that I could scrutinize about, like lion whiskers appearing to be painted flat onto their faces. It makes me wonder what Disney could accomplish if they were to make a new 2D feature from the ground up with these details taken into account.
One thing that kind of breaks the 3D illusion for me is the frame rate. In all 3D movies, I am more aware of the low frame rate of film compared to the refresh rate of my own eyes. Traditional animation on 2's looks even more odd to me. I would really love to see a 3D animated film at a full 60 fps. Not achievable with film, but with the digital projection nowadays, it is technically feasible.
I would recommend for anyone who enjoyed the Lion King to see it in 3D. It is a just a beautifully made film. It had always bothered me the plot is basically a kung-fu movie, where instead of spending years training, Simba eats bugs and becomes a hippie. The whole vengeance thing doesn't really come across. But the fans have spoken with their wallets, and I hope that this opens more doors to the potential of stereo 3D in the movies.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)