| Page (1) of 1 - 11/27/06 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
One of the most challenging aspects of creating believable CGI characters and impactful digital animation is the portrayal of genuine emotion. Inspiring an audience to become absorbed by the performance of a 3D character starts with good writing and a great looking character? but the character?s acting is the crucial variable that lofts it from digital art to a soulful emotive on-screen being. The owners of Pendulum have been eagerly pursuing this challenge, and have dedicated significant R&D efforts to developing a solution to this growing entertainment-industry dilemma.
Partnering with the motion capture experts at Los Angeles-based House of Moves (owned by Vicon), Pendulum is diving deep into the complex realm of believable CGI character development. Through the marriage of House of Moves? leading-edge motion capture technologies, known throughout the industry for unprecedented accuracy and flexibility, and Pendulum?s award-winning 3D CGI production experience, a new pipeline has evolved.
A fundamental hurdle in the effort to bring believable digital actors to the screen is achieving realistic facial animation. With the most recent implementations of the Vicon motion capture system, House of Moves is able to achieve an unparalleled level of precision in the capture of facial motion. But actually applying that data effectively is another story; this is where Pendulum believed it could provide a new solution. Their research into this area, spearheaded by lead developer Michael Hutchinson, has resulted in the creation of a proprietary software application, called Stretchmark. The primary goal of this new process is to make it not only possible, but efficient and economical to bring the nuance of a real actor?s facial performance into the virtual world.
To do this, Pendulum?s character modelers digitally sculpt a character?s head and a wide range of phoneme poses and facial expressions (such as furrowed brows, frowns, lip curls, etc) using Autodesk?s Maya and Pixologic?s ZBrush. These sculpted expressions, which can be realistic or exaggerated, are called ?morph targets? or ?facial blend-shapes?. The Stretchmark software then allows Pendulum to transform extensive amounts of facial mo-cap data and 3D character blend-shapes into extremely realistic and accurate CGI facial animation. Instead of leaning on an inherent database of human anatomy, the process relies upon the studio?s artists to create the sculpted expressions (allowing the digital character infinite creative possibilities, ranging from realistic to cartoony), while Stretchmark simply and efficiently finds the best combination of facial blend-shapes to replicate the original actor?s facial positions. The process delivers exceptional results at surprising speeds with very little fine tuning needed, while still providing the animators a great deal of flexibility in tweaking the blend-shapes and manipulating subtleties of the character?s expression in real-time.
To demonstrate this new pipeline, Pendulum?s owners, Rob Taylor and Michael McCormick, knew they?d need a visually powerful 3D character, compelling emotional writing, and ?most of all? great motion capture acting that would show an expressive emotional range from subdued calm to explosive fervor. It didn?t take long to realize that Shakespeare was the ideal source. They settled on one of Mark Antony?s passionate monologues from Antony and Cleopatra.
Pendulum designed and built a 3D CGI Mark Antony and a richly textured environment germane to the monologue?s scene. The studio?s artists sculpted 42 realistic facial blend-shapes for the character. After casting the right actor, the directors joined their colleagues at House of Moves for the mo-cap session. The House of Moves team captured the full performance of the actor, including his body, hands, facial motions and even his voice? all simultaneously.
For this production, the actor was fitted with 86 facial track points. The flexibility of their system would even allow multiple actors to be captured at the same time, if desired. Next, the data was brought into Pendulum?s pipeline where Stretchmark was used to apply the data to the CG Mark Antony. Beyond just the exhibition of an emotive and believable digital character, the Mark Antony production demonstrates the seamless integration of House of Moves? full performance capture system with Pendulum?s digital animation pipeline and proprietary motion-capture application tools. With this proven pipeline, the realism of facial and full-body performance is only limited by the quality of the actor and the director?s vision.
From its conception to the final rendering and composite, the Mark Antony project shows Pendulum?s momentum in the world of believable digital characters. Both in research and development, as well as its partnership with industry leader House of Moves, Pendulum looks to the horizon and gives a glimpse of the drama and emotion that CG characters are able to convey.
Pendulum Studios is the San Diego based 3D animation and digital fx studio specializing in high-end character animation and story-telling. Owned and operated by directors, Michael McCormick and Robert Taylor, the studio strives to produce the highest quality animation for commercials, game cinematics, film, and their own animated shorts. For more information about the studio, please visit www.studiopendulum.com.
Related Links
Pendulum - http://www.studiopendulum.com
House of Moves - http://www.moves.com
Vicon - http://www.vicon.com
ZBrush, Pixologic - http://www.pixologic.com
Mark Antony Project Credits:
Pendulum
Michael McCormick ? Director, 3D Lead, Shading & Lighting Artist
Robert Taylor ? Director, Executive Producer, Sr Compositor
Wade Ammon ? Producer
Michael Hutchinson ? Software Development, Character TD, FX Artist
Reed Casey ? 3D Environment Artist
Bryn Morrow ? 3D Character Artist
Gina Adamova ? 3D Character Artist
Stefan Minning ? Shading & Lighting Artist
Matt Schiller ? Character TD
Emil Bidiuc ? 3D Animator
Kevin Jackson ? 3D Animators
Paul Jewell ? 3D FX Artist
Scott Mitchell ? Jr Compositor
James Caffery ? Motion Capture Actor
House of Moves
Gary Roberts ? VP of Production
Scott Gagain ? Exec Producer
Greta Anderson ? Associate Producer
Chris Bellaci ? Production Manager
Amy Calcote ? Technical Producer
Andre Petrossian ? Stage Manager, System Operator
Vince Argentine ? QA Lead
Laura Siewert ? MoCap Artist
Page: 1
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Digital Animators , Animation Artist , Siggraph News , Digital Post Production , Oceania
Related Newsletter: DMN Newsletter , Timeline Newsletter , Renders , Digital Media Net , DMNForums
Vegas Pro 8 + Free Vegas Seminar Series
