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Impressions of Siggraph: Standouts from the Show Floor

Oct 1, 1999 12:00 PM, Dan Ochiva, Kristinha McCort, and Michael Goldman

This year's Siggraph was both mellower (smaller) than previous years and more dramatic (SGI took care of that with their mid-show announcements). For more on the graphic workstation developments, see technical editor Dan Ochiva's article in this issue. Below, the Millimeter editors report on some of their standout impressions from the show.

Can Improv Become the Mother of All Animation Programs? In a perfect world, one software package would deliver it all. You would never have to go to one for character animation, while employing the superior rendering of another. But what if you had a program that enabled you to use all your different animation, graphics, and effects packages at once? New York-based Improv Technology says that it has developed a program that will do just that. The company claims that Orchestrate 3D, which is expected to reach beta testing by December, provides central control over just about any Windows NT-based animation package.

"Orchestrate 3D provides a framework to use tools animators already have, but in a much more intuitive manner," says Athomas Goldberg, president and CTO of Improv Technology. Improv is also the name of Orchestra's underlying technology, developed from research begun nearly five years ago in New York University's computer science department. Goldberg, then directing NYU's Media Research Lab, and Professor Ken Perlman, worked to create high-level tools to better control animation systems.

One example of Improv's algorithms could be seen in a popular presentation at the Electronic Theater screenings. Over the past couple of years, Perlman's AI technology (Artificial Intelligence figures in the basic Improv technology) powered a gaggle of self-animated penguins. Each bird would react to the presence of one or more penguins in the scene and change its actions. This year, Electronic Theater viewers witnessed an Improv-powered emcee. This cyber emcee changed its responses via live feedback from the audience.

However, Orchestrate 3D is not an AI program. Animators still work in whatever program they choose. But the software does use part of Improv's technology to control procedural, behavioral, and other high-level elements. For example, when creating a walk cycle with 60 keyframes, animators handle many different factors, such as stride length or side-to-side motion. But what if animators also save those particular characteristics to libraries?

The neat trick here is that animators still use their favorite tools, such as Maya, 3D Studio, or Softimage to create with. Orchestrate 3D, which currently runs on Windows NT workstations, sits "above" these programs. So rather than recreating that walk cycle every time it is needed, animators work within Orchestrate 3D, pull that behavior from a library, and place it on timeline. Whenever the basic elements need to be changed, users work in the animation program but can do so from within Orchestrate 3D.

The idea here: to concentrate on what you want the character to do and not worry about the details. "When blocking out more complex scenes in an animation," says Goldberg, "you can deal with a limited number of high-level elements, choreographing them in a more intuitive way than traditional key-frame animation."

For example, if you want a character to walk into a room, grab a martini, and turn around, you pull the various elements together into the software's standard-looking timeline. Built from "canned" behaviors, the timeline incorporates elements from your particular mix of programs. If a company has standardized one animation program, there is a way to make use of all the other programs gathering dust.

The logic behind Orchestrate 3D, how it fits into a project development cycle, has yet to be proved. But the company already has plans for future versions that include adding the ability to control image-processing programs. Improv is considering including SGI-based programs, too. Estimated pricing? Around $3,000 to $4,000. Since animators may turn jobs around faster while making use of the software on hand, the upside looks interesting. Not unexpectedly, major animation studios were among the first to apply for beta site status. For more information, contact Improv Technology at (212) 725-4590.

WAM!NET Renders While You Work Maybe it had to happen. A service to deliver rendering over a network, a big network, at reasonable prices. The necessary parts of such a scheme, high-speed connections and cheap CPUs, have come together over the past few years. More and more fiber and satellite lines, spanning the nation and the globe, are installed each year. Connectivity competition brings the price down, while various wave division multiplexing technologies (these cram multitudes more signals on each link) promise even greater savings in the future.

There are cheaper, more capable processors that can handle rendering chores while sitting somewhere with plenty of inexpensive storage space and cheap electricity. Technical and support staff, meanwhile, live in less-pricey surrounds. Why not put them all together?

WAM!NET thought so, and now there's ROD! (Render On Demand). The "near-beta" version turned up at Siggraph. "We make virtual computing power available to an individual or a large company," says Dave Witters, WAM!NET's project manager for animation, visual effects, and rendering. "There are hundreds of CPUs available at our site, so vast computing power can be rented on an as-needed basis. Now, even a single user has the means to bid on larger jobs, while studios have a way to handle their work overflow."

That computing power brings results. At one hour rendering time per frame, for example, a 100-frame animation project takes four days. Lash 100 processors together, however, and that comes down to one hour.

WAM!NET developed the rendering queue software, basically a desktop turn-key product. With it, animators point-and-click files to the ROD! site. Finished files return and store automatically to a local drive or RAID array. Pricing is per each CPU used. Small projects pay around $13 for each, with larger volume jobs pricing at $5. If it's a big job, $500 an hour buys you 100 CPUs. Presently, rendering is for programs running on SGI's IRIX operating system. Coming soon: Windows NT and Linux support, enabling programs such as Softimage's Mental Ray and Pixar's RenderMan.

At the show, WAM!NET and Alias announced co-marketing and sales to the installed base of Maya users. That collaboration might be expected, since SGI that partnered with WAM!NET to create the rendering service. SGI created the custom cluster of servers that ROD! employs, pulling together hundreds of MIPS processors to build the renderfarm. Chris Landreth, Alias' in-house artist-and the creator of that Siggraph favorite, the malicious Bingo the clown-began rendering with ROD! in September on his latest production, A Trip to Renee's House.

Beginning in 1996, Eagan, Minnesota-based WAM!NET provided resolution-independent, high-speed file transfer services to the pre-press and media industries. Meanwhile, the recently introduced MPEG-2 video delivery service shoots review-quality files around the U.S. and Europe for customers including Universal Studios and London's The Mill. With ROD!, WAM!NET may have found a way to the hearts and minds of animators and graphics artists everywhere.

Soul Food In form and content, the productions of the Siggraph '99 Animation Theater reflected the theme of this year's program: "Stories-The Soul of the Performance." According to Linda Brannagan, director of engineering at San Francisco-based Click 3X Construct and a jury member for the festival, the theater is often a reservoir for pieces that are too long for the Electronic Theater. But overall, the venue supports both long and short projects t hat reflect Siggraph's high standards for technical excellence and what jury member Bill Kroyer, director at L.A.'s Rhythm & Hues, has noticed as a trend over the past few years: the increased quality of narrative films. "In the beginning of Siggraph, narrative films were a bit more amateurish because the people making them tended to be scientific people and not professional filmmakers," he states. "The fact that computer graphics has become a very standard production tool in the industry now means that we're finding a much higher polish to the narrative entertainment films."

Here are a few examples of projects whose inspiration and animation embodied the soul of Siggraph '99.

Evolution in the First Person The inspiration for Elouise Oyzon's 2D, black-and-white piece was simple. "I got pregnant," states the Rochester Institute of Technology grad. Illustrating pregnancy, however, was not simple. "Expressing labor pain was difficult," she reveals. "I could have shown someone breathing hard and scrunching up her face. But because animation is not based in reality, it affords me the opportunity to explore other avenues. That's why I decided pain looked like really scratchy, scribbly lines."

Indeed, the rough lines and yet fluid movement of the piece, which Oyzon attained through MetaCreation's Painter, exude a visceral and personal quality. "Most work is autobiographical. This was a much more literal interpretation of that," she submits.

Rolie Polie Olie In contrast to Oyzon's rugged style are the smooth, round surfaces of Rolie Polie Olie, a co-production of Toronto-based Nelvana and Paris-based Sparx Studios. The Siggraph short introduces the characters of the Disney Channel's all-CG 3D series (based on an idea by children's writer William Joyce) by following the title character's point of view as he records his family with a hand-held camera. This plot aptly highlights director Mike Fallows' use of digital cinematography.

"With 3D, you are free to put the camera anywhere you like, which can be a trap if you're not careful," cautions Fallows, who animates in both Alias and Softimage. "But after working in 2D for so many years, it's just a great tool that I can use. It makes the shows a little more cinematic."

Half-Pint Heroes Everett Downing's tale of a giant bovine gone berserk captures the best of both 2D and 3D worlds. The director and fellow cohorts Aaron Hartline and Daniel O'Brien (all of Big Idea, Chicago) used Softimage to create the mad cow and the short's tiny superheros as cartoon-styled 3D objects.

"I wanted to capture the 2D look, so we tried hard to give it vibrant colors and flatness" Downing explains. "But there are a lot of 3D things that you can do a lot faster-a lot of the fire and some of the special effects were easier to do. And as far as the modeling is concerned, you don't have to worry about continually having to redraw. It took a smaller group of people to animate something a lot faster, and it still looked really good."

Mo-Cap Takes Center Stage While the debate about whether motion-captured images should be considered animation lingers on, Siggraph '99 was full of mo-cap demos, hardware and software improvements, and rumors about major film and television productions gearing up to use the technology in the coming months. Mo-cap was so common at the show that dog-tired actors in spandex suits with tiny mo-cap sensors velcroed up and down their bodies were a common sight-lunching next to executives in suits at the L.A. Convention Center.

The motion-capture technology on display at Siggraph has made great strides at a startling pace. Real-time, optical mo-cap, for instance, was in its infancy a year ago in Orlando. But this year, it was prominently displayed all over the show floor proving that motion-capture technology is finally practical for episodic TV production work.

At the show, rivals Motion Analysis and Vicon were busy trumpeting their newest optical systems, each with real-time capabilities and eachalready being utilized on episodic, animated TV shows. Vicon officials, for instance, touted the fact that Foundation Imaging recently decided to invest in the company's Vicon 8 optical system to produce the new, syndicated show Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, in place of that studio's previous magnetic-based system.

While Vicon customer House of Moves entertained potential clients on beanbag chairs at its booth, Siggraph '99 also demonstrated that HOM is no longer the only facility dedicated exclusively to motion-capture work. At the show, Atlanta-based Giant Studios demonstrated improvements in its exclusive optical system, based on technology from Biomechanics Inc. (Acclaim Entertainment formerly used the system for video game production.) Giant's system, also realtime, impressed many by making strides against the occlusion problem. With just four cameras, an actor's movements translate smoothly and instantly to a computer model even when several people tightly surround him.

At the Intel booth, meanwhile, India's Pentafour studios showed clips from what they say is the world's first animated feature film featuring full mo-capped movement for all characters from start to finish-Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists. That film, which used both Vicon and Motion Analysis optical technology, is expected to be released overseas this year and will likely be released next year in the U.S. (See related story in this issue on page 21.)

Though earning less buzz than their optical counterparts, manufacturers of magnetic systems were at the show in full force. Ascension, Polhemus, and others touted improvements in their systems and took every opportunity to remind visitors about the continuing price-point gap between their technology and the optical world.

The show also displayed a wide range of tools designed to aid the use of captured motion. Users of both magnetic and optical systems, for instance, raved about the growing flexibility of Kaydara's Filmbox product. Version 2.0 offers a range of real-time, interactive tools to users of most major systems.

Siggraph '99 also demonstrated that the mo-cap world has opened up to "specialists" in several areas related to the technology. The Dutch company, Motek Motion Technology, for instance, was featured at the Intergraph booth, showing off its technology to develop and sell libraried motion-capture data to key-frame artists seeking another arrow for their quivers. Performance Capture Studios of Los Angeles, meanwhile, showed visitors at the Motion Analysis booth its strides in animal motion capture.

On an even more specialized front, Pacific Title Mirage's use of its proprietary LifeF/x facial capture system was demonstrated for selected show attendees at the company's Hollywood studios, and a short film made with the technology was featured in Siggraph's Electronic Theater.

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.