Impressions of Siggraph: Standouts from the Show Floor

This year's Siggraph was both mellower (smaller) than previous years andmore dramatic (SGI took care of that with their mid-show announcements).For more on the graphic workstation developments, see technical editor DanOchiva's article in this issue. Below, the Millimeter editors report onsome 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 wouldnever have to go to one for character animation, while employing thesuperior rendering of another. But what if you had a program that enabledyou to use all your different animation, graphics, and effects packages atonce? New York-based Improv Technology says that it has developed a programthat will do just that. The company claims that Orchestrate 3D, which isexpected to reach beta testing by December, provides central control overjust 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 andCTO of Improv Technology. Improv is also the name of Orchestra's underlyingtechnology, developed from research begun nearly five years ago in New YorkUniversity's computer science department. Goldberg, then directing NYU'sMedia Research Lab, and Professor Ken Perlman, worked to create high-leveltools to better control animation systems.

One example of Improv's algorithms could be seen in a popular presentationat the Electronic Theater screenings. Over the past couple of years,Perlman's AI technology (Artificial Intelligence figures in the basicImprov technology) powered a gaggle of self-animated penguins. Each birdwould react to the presence of one or more penguins in the scene and changeits actions. This year, Electronic Theater viewers witnessed anImprov-powered emcee. This cyber emcee changed its responses via livefeedback from the audience.

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

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

The idea here: to concentrate on what you want the character to do and notworry about the details. "When blocking out more complex scenes in ananimation," says Goldberg, "you can deal with a limited number ofhigh-level elements, choreographing them in a more intuitive way thantraditional 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'sstandard-looking timeline. Built from "canned" behaviors, the timelineincorporates elements from your particular mix of programs. If a companyhas standardized one animation program, there is a way to make use of allthe other programs gathering dust.

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

WAM!NET Renders While You WorkMaybe it had to happen. A service to deliver rendering over a network, abig network, at reasonable prices. The necessary parts of such a scheme,high-speed connections and cheap CPUs, have come together over the past fewyears. More and more fiber and satellite lines, spanning the nation and theglobe, are installed each year. Connectivity competition brings the pricedown, while various wave division multiplexing technologies (these crammultitudes more signals on each link) promise even greater savings in thefuture.

There are cheaper, more capable processors that can handle rendering choreswhile sitting somewhere with plenty of inexpensive storage space and cheapelectricity. Technical and support staff, meanwhile, live in less-priceysurrounds. 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 poweravailable 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 powercan be rented on an as-needed basis. Now, even a single user has the meansto bid on larger jobs, while studios have a way to handle their workoverflow."

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

WAM!NET developed the rendering queue software, basically a desktopturn-key product. With it, animators point-and-click files to the ROD!site. Finished files return and store automatically to a local drive orRAID array. Pricing is per each CPU used. Small projects pay around $13 foreach, with larger volume jobs pricing at $5. If it's a big job, $500 anhour buys you 100 CPUs. Presently, rendering is for programs running onSGI'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 theinstalled base of Maya users. That collaboration might be expected, sinceSGI that partnered with WAM!NET to create the rendering service. SGIcreated the custom cluster of servers that ROD! employs, pulling togetherhundreds of MIPS processors to build the renderfarm. Chris Landreth, Alias'in-house artist-and the creator of that Siggraph favorite, the maliciousBingo the clown-began rendering with ROD! in September on his latestproduction, A Trip to Renee's House.

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

Soul FoodIn form and content, the productions of the Siggraph '99 Animation Theaterreflected the theme of this year's program: "Stories-The Soul of thePerformance." According to Linda Brannagan, director of engineering at SanFrancisco-based Click 3X Construct and a jury member for the festival, thetheater is often a reservoir for pieces that are too long for the Electronic Theater. But overall, the venue supports both long and short projects that reflect Siggraph's high standards for technical excellence and whatjury member Bill Kroyer, director at L.A.'s Rhythm & Hues, has noticed as atrend over the past few years: the increased quality of narrative films."In the beginning of Siggraph, narrative films were a bit more amateurishbecause the people making them tended to be scientific people and notprofessional filmmakers," he states. "The fact that computer graphics hasbecome a very standard production tool in the industry now means that we'refinding a much higher polish to the narrative entertainment films."

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

Evolution in the First PersonThe 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 wasdifficult," she reveals. "I could have shown someone breathing hard andscrunching up her face. But because animation is not based in reality, itaffords me the opportunity to explore other avenues. That's why I decidedpain looked like really scratchy, scribbly lines."

Indeed, the rough lines and yet fluid movement of the piece, which Oyzonattained through MetaCreation's Painter, exude a visceral and personalquality. "Most work is autobiographical. This was a much more literalinterpretation of that," she submits.

Rolie Polie OlieIn contrast to Oyzon's rugged style are the smooth, round surfaces of RoliePolie Olie, a co-production of Toronto-based Nelvana and Paris-based SparxStudios. The Siggraph short introduces the characters of the DisneyChannel's all-CG 3D series (based on an idea by children's writer WilliamJoyce) by following the title character's point of view as he records hisfamily with a hand-held camera. This plot aptly highlights director MikeFallows' use of digital cinematography.

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

Half-Pint HeroesEverett Downing's tale of a giant bovine gone berserk captures the best ofboth 2D and 3D worlds. The director and fellow cohorts Aaron Hartline andDaniel O'Brien (all of Big Idea, Chicago) used Softimage to create the madcow 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 vibrantcolors and flatness" Downing explains. "But there are a lot of 3D thingsthat you can do a lot faster-a lot of the fire and some of the specialeffects were easier to do. And as far as the modeling is concerned, youdon't have to worry about continually having to redraw. It took a smallergroup of people to animate something a lot faster, and it still lookedreally good."

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

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

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

While Vicon customer House of Moves entertained potential clients onbeanbag chairs at its booth, Siggraph '99 also demonstrated that HOM is nolonger the only facility dedicated exclusively to motion-capture work. Atthe show, Atlanta-based Giant Studios demonstrated improvements in itsexclusive 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 theocclusion problem. With just four cameras, an actor's movements translatesmoothly and instantly to a computer model even when several people tightlysurround him.

At the Intel booth, meanwhile, India's Pentafour studios showed clips fromwhat they say is the world's first animated feature film featuring fullmo-capped movement for all characters from start to finish-Sinbad: Beyondthe Veil of Mists. That film, which used both Vicon and Motion Analysisoptical technology, is expected to be released overseas this year and willlikely be released next year in the U.S. (See related story in this issueon page 21.)

Though earning less buzz than their optical counterparts, manufacturers ofmagnetic systems were at the show in full force. Ascension, Polhemus, andothers touted improvements in their systems and took every opportunity toremind visitors about the continuing price-point gap between theirtechnology and the optical world.

The show also displayed a wide range of tools designed to aid the use ofcaptured motion. Users of both magnetic and optical systems, for instance,raved about the growing flexibility of Kaydara's Filmbox product. Version2.0 offers a range of real-time, interactive tools to users of most majorsystems.

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

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