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MillimeterPerfecting a Pipeline
May 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Michael Goldman
DreamWorks' latest CG film, Madagascar, represents the culmination of two important evolutionary steps for the studio's animation pipeline.
Filmmakers at PDI (Palo Alto) and DreamWorks Glendale collaborate in realtime using DreamWorks’ new Virtual Studio Collaboration (VSC) system.
First, Madagascar's characters benefited from significant upgrades to the company's proprietary facial animation system, the original version of which earned its creator, Dick Walsh, a Sci-Tech Award in 2002. Secondly, Madagascar is the first film to be produced by the studio's Glendale, Calif.-based animation unit and its northern California-based subsidiary, PDI/DreamWorks (formerly Pacific Data Images), working together as a single entity.
The company's implementation of its Virtual Studio Collaboration (VSC) system facilitated this unification of the two geographically separated studios for the production of Madagascar. Parts of the VSC system went online during production of Shrek 2 in 2004, but Madagascar represents the first full use of the system for the production of an entire movie.
“At the outset, Jeffrey Katzenberg (cofounder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation) challenged us to create a system for creatively collaborating across distances without the normal limitations of typical videoconferencing systems,” says Derek Chan, head of digital operations for DreamWorks. “Basically, we built the equivalent of a 12-person conference room, split in half with six people in each location, facing each other as though they were at the same oval conference table. Using our innate sense of [the importance of] nonverbal communication and the creative collaboration process [in person], we created an experience that leveraged our high-speed data connection, using high-quality AV codecs to provide realtime conversation. We then set up three different applications for the system. The first is for business-to-business collaboration, with three plasma screens connecting the two halves of the conference table. One of these displays is a collaboration system capable of sharing PowerPoint, Excel, or even our own proprietary, Linux-based animation tools. The second application is for editorial purposes, with directors interfacing with editors directly over a long distance. The third is a videowall version — a large-format room with a rear-projected screen from floor to ceiling that enables remote story pitches, dailies viewing, and large-format meetings. The collaboration software and design is based on HP's proprietary technology and hardware.”
For Madagascar, DreamWorks upgraded its award-winning facial animation system.
Meanwhile, DreamWorks' facial animation system also had a huge impact on Madagascar. The system, a key part of the company's larger proprietary EMO animation system, was significantly upgraded for Madagascar, according to Rex Grignon, head of character animation on the film and a longtime PDI/DreamWorks veteran. Grignon says the current iteration essentially represents the third generation of the system.
“If you think of Antz (1998) as the first generation of our facial system, and Shrek (2001) as the second, then this movie is the second big enhancement to the tool,” Grignon explains. “For Madagascar, we identified that the structure of the system was still fantastic, but it could also be limiting if you wanted to do broader stuff beyond realism in faces. We wanted to get away from a solid skull and animate the bones of the face — not just the skin on the face — so that we could get a squash-and-stretch look. The system was therefore redesigned with tools for that purpose. We retained the nuance and the structure of the system, but we added tools to let animators break that structure if they need to squash a cranium or stretch a jaw to the ground momentarily.”
Beth Hofer, head of global character development at the studio, explains that, in particular, the system now allows animators to go further with certain body parts.
“On a human face, the lower jaw is a single bone and it can pivot, but for this movie, halfway down the jawbone, we added another pivot. Now, we can do much broader mouths as a result,” she says. “The tongue, in the past, was always set up to be a speaking tongue and was handled with minimal movement, always geared toward phoneme shapes. In Madagascar, the tongue is almost a character itself because of the cartoonish style. We therefore added advanced controls to our facial system so the animators could sculpt the tongue into exaggerated shapes.”
