Daniela Strijleva

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Daniela Strijleva is a Character Art Director currently working at Pixar. She has worked on Toy Story 3, Newt, Day and Night, La Luna and Monsters University. As a Character Art Director, it is Strijleva’s role to oversee and assist in creating concepts of characters in an animated film, something I think she did excellently in Toy Story 3, which is one of my favourite animated films. I would also love to be a character artist!

The process of creating concepts of characters in Toy Story 3 to their finished 3D models is outlined in this blog post. I have included an except below.

I started directly from my friend Erik Benson‘s hilarious board sequence and went from there.

Strijleva, D. (2012). Daniela Strijleva. Danielastrijleva.blogspot.com.au. Retrieved 11 March 2015, from http://danielastrijleva.blogspot.com.au/

Highlight in the history of 3D Graphics: Flocking Simulation

In 1986, a mathematical model of flocking behaviour was first simulated on computer by Craig Reynolds. In computer simulations, flocking refers to the the mimicking behaviour of a group of organisms (not just birds) when travelling in a large group.

Flocking behaviour follows 3 basic rules:

• Separation – avoid crowding neighbors
• Alignment – steer towards average heading of neighbors
• Cohesion – steer towards average position of neighbors

This new technology was quickly used in animation as it reduced the immense workload involved in animating large crowds through automatically generating how entities moved within a group in a realistic manner. Early applications include the flocking bats in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992) and the wildebeest stampede in Disney’s The Lion King (1994)

Wildebeests using flocking simulation in the Lion King

Wikipedia,. (2015). History of computer animation. Retrieved 11 March 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_animation
Wikipedia,. (2015). Flocking (behavior). Retrieved 11 March 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior)

Production Pipeline: Compositing

Composting is the process of combining different visual elements from different sources and combining them to make it seem they are from the same scene. A narrowly defined colour in one image or video is designated to be replaced with another image or video, and are aligned to appear as a unified whole.

In the case of this scene from The Hobbit, the colour green has been replaced by a computer generated background and Smaug, giving the appearance in the final film that Bilbo and the dragon are occupying the same space.

It is a compositing artist’s responsibility to make sure the combined elements are coherent, believeable, and seamless. They most often work in the the film and television industries and collaborate with the lighting and FX artists to help ensure the final sequence appears polished and finalised

Animationcareerreview.com,. (2015). Compositing Artist - Career Profile | Animation Career Review. Retrieved 7 March 2015, from http://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/compositing-artist-career-profile

Wikipedia,. (2015). Compositing. Retrieved 7 March 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositing#Further_reading.

Production Pipeline: Rendering

Rendering is the stage where the appearance of the completed film will be finally be seen. It is the process of converting a completed 3D scene that has gone through all the previous steps into a final digital image- or series of images in animation. To do this, it takes all of the data associated with the 3D models in the scene, such as shading, textures, bump mapping, shadows, reflections transparency, particle effects and the camera angle to calculate the finished, polished look of the scene. Because of all these variables, the rendered appearance often differs greatly from the animation environment that the animators have been working in- which usually only has limited if any representation of these factors at all.

The difference between a rendered model and the model in the animation environment.

3D graphics can be pre-rendered or rendered in real time. Pre-rendering is an often slow and computationally demanding process depending on the complexity of the scene being rendered. It is used for film, animations and occasionally game cutscenes and has the capacity to create more realistic or visually impressive images than real time rendering. Real time rendering refers to analyzing and creating images in real time using a GPU for 3D video games or other interactive 3D media.

A scene of this complexity from Big Hero 6 would have likely taken many hours, if not days, to render.

Sanders, A. (2015). In Computer Animation, What is Rendering?. About.com Tech. Retrieved 5 March 2015, from http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/In-Computer-Animation-What-Is-Rendering.htm

Wikipedia,. (2015). 3D rendering. Retrieved 5 March 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_rendering

Production Pipeline: Lighting

Lighting involves placing and determining the properties of the light sources in the 3D scenes. A lighting artist must also determine how light will interact with materials and textures and help define the mood of the scene. The style of lighting is formulated to make sure it is in accordance with the aesthetic of the film.

The bright red and yellow lights in this scene from Toy Story assist in conveying both the intensity of the moment and the physical temperature.

Some examples of types of lighting that can be applied to a scene are:

• Point/omnidirectional light: a point in 3D space that projects light in every direction. They are useful for small light sources such as candles and light bulbs.

• Directional light: Light that is cast in a parallel fashion from a single direction. It is used to represent large distant light sources, like the sun and moon.

• Spotlight: A spotlight emits a cone shaped field of light from a single point in space. It is useful for items such as torches and lamps.

• Area light: A light that casts directional rays from a specific shape. Because of this it is useful for fluorescent lights and thing with a backlight like monitors and TVs.

• Volumetric light: a light cast from the surfaces of a geometric primitive in an omnidirectional manner. It is useful for objects that glow.

• Ambient light: A soft light that is cast in every direction. It is similar to the light on an overcast day.

This image shows and example of point light.

Gulati, P. (2010). Step-by-Step : How to Make an Animated Movie - Tuts+ 3D & Motion Graphics Article. 3D & Motion Graphics Tuts+. Retrieved 3 March 2015, from http://cgi.tutsplus.com/articles/step-by-step-how-to-make-an-animated-movie--cg-3257

Slick, J. (2015). A Guide to 3D Lighting Techniques for Digital Animation. About.com Tech. Retrieved 3 March 2015, from http://3d.about.com/od/Creating-3D-The-CG-Pipeline/a/3d-Lighting-Techniques-Standard-3d-Lighting_2.htm

Production Pipeline: Animation

After rigging is complete, animation can commence. 3D animation works in a very similar fashion to traditional 2D animation in the way it creates the illusion of movement- by displaying static images or frames that differ slightly from each other in rapid succession. It involves positioning the character or object with it’s rig into key frames (the frames in an animated sequence that define starting and ending points of movement) according to the storyboard and animatic. The sequence at first it very rough and stiff as it usually involves simply moving the model across the screen with little to no other movement. From there more details are added until the keyframes match the storyboard. The frames in between the keyframes can be automatically animated by the computer, or done manually. This process is known as tweening. To assist in getting the movement looking correct, a simple 2D animation can be drawn up first to refer from, or the movement to be depicted can be referenced off a live action sequence.

Motion Capture can be used to assist in creating very realistic animations. A real actor is recorded with markers attached to them which usually coincide with the rig of the model their movements will be applied to. Even though this method may save time, animators still have to clean up the captured motion and animate any parts that weren’t digitised during the process.

This image shows the motion capture process in the Pirates of the Caribbean, from the sensor-clad actor to final rendered animation.

Wikipedia,. (2015). Computer animation. Retrieved 28 February 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_animation

Wikipedia,. (2015). Inbetweening. Retrieved 28 February 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbetweening

Wikipedia,. (2015). Motion capture. Retrieved 28 February 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_capture