Maya : secrets of the pros

384 Pages·2002·117.19 MB·English

by  John L Kundert-Gibbs

Here's What You Will Find Inside
Maya: Secrets of the Pros:
Peter Lee of Storydale Inc. rides the
power of Maya Unlimited's
Sub-Division Surfaces to build a
better horse. And now you can too.
Page 35
Eric Kunzendorf of Atlanta College
of Art challenges you to fire up
your senses and visualize your Mark Jennings Smith of Digital Drama brings you
character's actions as you model "Organix," simple geometric shapes and Paint Effects
and texture for efficient animation. brush strokes are transformed into complex natural-
Page3 looking objects that are then brought to life. Page 51
Robin Akin and Remington Scott of Weta Digital Keep your characters from mouthing off as Dariush
combine motion-capture data with keyframed anima- Derakhshani of Sight Effects and John Kundert-Gibbs
tion in three powerful tutorials to help you master the and Rebecca Johnson of Clemson University show
integration of these two types of animation. Page 85 some economical and flexible methods for matching
your model's lip motion to your audio track.
Page 119
Continued on the inside back cover

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To all our family, friends, and colleagues.
And to Kristin, Joshua, and Kenlee.
—John Kundert-Gibbs
resources. Chris Faber, one of the most amazingly tal-
Acknowledgments
ended and complete 3D artists, for his extremely pre-
Florian Fernandez cious lGB of RAM. Thomas Hain, thanks again for
Charles LeGuen your hints. Simone Bruschi, who gave me the first sug-
Miles Perkins, ILM gestions on how to do CGI professionally. Franco
Jacklyn Pomales, Warner Brothers Valenziano, who left me in front of Softimage on an
Chris Holm, Lucasfilm Ltd. SGI, with three tutorials to do in one hour. Carlo
At Clemson University: James Barker, Doris Alfano, to whom I dedicate my chapter. I am grateful
Helms, Bonnie Holaday, Mark McKnew, Robert for the chance that he gave me many years ago, offer-
Geist, and Mike Westall ing an internship with the crew of Locomotion and
At Sybex: Acquisitions and Developmental Edi- kick-starting my happy career.
tor Mariann Barsolo, Production Editor Elizabeth Chapter 8, Habib Zargarpour: The incredible
Campbell, Editor Pat Coleman, Production Manager ILM crew of 120 artists who worked on The Perfect
Amy Changar, and Designer Mark Ong Storm, for their dedication and perseverance in what
Chapter 4, Robin Akin and Remington Scott: is likely to be the most difficult show they have
Florian Fernandez, for providing the animation worked on. VFX supervisor Stefen Fangmeier kept a
model, setup, and accompanying MEL script for the consistent vision throughout the project, and ILM
tutorials on the CD that accompanies the book. You producer Ginger Thieson put up with my endless
can visit his web page at www.flo3d.com. Spectrum requests for reference! Many people contributed to
Studios, for providing the motion capture data used in this show, and in particular 1 would like to acknowl-
the tutorial. edge John Anderson for his experience and knowledge
Chapter 6, Emanuele D'Arrigo: John Kundert- of fluid dynamics and physics; we benefited greatly
Gibbs, our coordinator, for his friendliness and con- from his wisdom. My R&D team of technical direc-
stant encouragement. Robin Akin, for involving me in tors: Joakim Arnesson, Pat Conran, Niel Herzinger,
this project with so many incredibly experienced pro- Chris Horvath, Erik Krumrey, Masi Oka, and Mayur
fessionals. Munich Animation and its 3D supervisor Patelm. They all made amazing contributions and
Hartmut Engel, for allowing me to use their technical made it seem like anything was possible.
in
iv About the Authors
About the Authors Timothy A. Davis
Timothy A. Davis is currently an Assistant Professor
in the Computer Science Department at Clemson Uni-
John Kundert-Gibbs, lead author
versity and has played an active role in developing the
John Kundert-Gibbs is director of the Digital Produc- interdisciplinary master's program in Digital Arts Pro-
tion Arts program at Clemson University, which is duction, which trains students to produce special
preparing the technical directors of the future. Author effects for entertainment and commercial projects. His
of a number of publications on Maya, computer teaching and research interests include parallel/distrib-
graphics, and dramatic literature, he directs students uted rendering, ray tracing, spatio-temporal coher-
in producing animated shorts, creates effects for live ence, and non-photorealistic rendering. He received
action projects, and designs electronic media for the- his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in
atrical productions. He is co-author of Mastering 1998 and has worked in technical positions for the
Maya 3 and Mastering Maya Complete 2 and has a Environmental Protection Agency and NASA God-
Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Princeton Uni- dard Space Flight Center.
versity and a Ph.D. in dramatic literature frorn Ohio
State University.
Dariush Derakhshani
Dariush Derakhshani is a senior CGI effects animator
Robin Akin
with Sight Effects in Venice, CA, working on award-
Robin Akin has been an animation supervisor for a winning national television commercials. He has won
CG/live-action television docu-drama and an anima- the Bronze Plaque from the Columbus Film Festival
tor and digital artist on feature films, commercials, and has shared honors from the AICP and London
and television series. Currently, Robin is working at International Advertising Awards. He has worked as a
Weta Digital on The Lord ofthe Rings: The Two Tow- CGI animator and compositor on a variety of projects
ers, the second film of the Tolkien trilogy. She has also from films to television and was a Supervising Techni-
worked for Digital Domain and SquareUSA, among cal Director for the South Park television series. Dar-
other studios. Her animation credits include the fea- iush also enjoys splitting his time consulting and
ture films Titanic and Final Fantasy: The Spirits teaching at a variety of schools, including USC Film
Within and Clio Award-winning commercials for School's MFA Animation program and writing as fre-
clients such as Jeep and Coca-Cola. quently as he can. His works have appeared on the-
scratchpost.com and various sites of the digitalmedi-
anet.com, and he is the Senior Editor of taintmagazine
Emanuele D'Arrigo
.com. He is the author of an upcoming book on
Emanuele D'Arrigo began working in computer Maya. Dariush has a Bachelor of Arts in architecture
graphics in \ 995 in Italy before relocating to Munich and in theater from Lehigh University and a Master of
to work as a freelance artist on various projects, such Fine Arts in animation from USC Film School. He is
as the full-length animated feature Help! I'm a Fish!, a bald and has flat feet.
Danish-German coproduction, and the pilot episode
for the science-fiction TV series Ice Planet, produced
Eric Kunzendorf
by H5B5. Professionally born on Softimage, he's now
a TD mainly working with Maya, specialized in Eric Kunzendorf is co-chairman of Electronic Arts in
scripting, crowds, and effects. At the time of the writ- the areas of animation, multimedia, and digital art at
ing, he's still based in Munich but has plans to move The Atlanta College of Art and has been teaching com-
to England and eventually to San Francisco. His puter graphics and animation at the college level for
motto is: "Believe in your team, believe in your the past nine years. His animations, Final Project
dreams." Assignment and Mime In A Box, have made appear-
ances at the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival
About the Authors v
in 1999 and 2000, respectively. He holds a Bachelor of MarkJennings Smith
Arts in art history from Columbia University and a
Mark Jennings Smith has been interested in CG since
Masters of Fine Arts in drawing and painting from the
1972, when at age 10 a chance encounter with the
University of Georgia and has exhibited
first coin-op PONG changed his life. A CG historian,
computer-generated prints nationally.
Mark would love nothing more than discussing indus-
try topics from CG philosophy, industry politics, and
Peter Lee pixels as fine art to character animation, flocking sim-
ulation, and the rise of the synthetic actor. He enjoys
Peter Lee is director at Storydale Inc. in South Korea,
collecting fossils of CG past, on film and video. He
where he supervises TV series, commercials, movies,
sites William Latham, Yoichiro Kawagichi, Karl Sims,
and game companies. He has worked as a 3D artist on
and David Em as influences among others. His art and
projects such as Columbia Tristar's The Nuttiest Nut-
words can be found from cover to page, in several
cracker, New Line Cinema's/asow X, and Jon
CG/FX books and magazines. His film work has run
Nappa's The Super Snoopers; co-authored Sybex's
the gamut from Universal Pictures to Roger Corman
Mastering Maya series; and taught computer anima-
himself. His latest projects deal with "EXstreme
tion at ITDC, University of Toronto. He has also lead
Organix" (www . absynthesis . com), a cult comic-book
projects such as games movies for Dong Seo Game
hero, and a study of the past, present, and future of
Channel's PC game The Three Kingdoms III and Joy-
virtual humans.
cast's PS2 game Wingz.
Susanne Werth
Frank Ritlop
Susanne Werth got into animation in Mexico in 1997.
Frank Ritlop is a Canadian living in New Zealand. He
She graduated from Fachhochschule Furtwangen in
has been working in the CG industry for more than
computer science and media and started out as a char-
nine years and has a degree in film animation from
acter animator with a children's TV series in Potsdam,
Concordia University in Montreal. He has worked as a
Germany. After a period of time working as layout
lighting supervisor for CG studios in Montreal and
artist and layout supervisor, she went back to anima-
Munich and as a lighting artist at Square USA on Final
tion and stepped forward into MEL scripting. She cur-
Fantasy: The Spirits Within. He is currently working at
rently works as character animator and MEL pro-
Weta Digital as a Shot Technical Director on the sec-
grammer at a children's TV production company in
ond installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Germany.
Remington Scott
Habib Zargarpour
Remington Scott is currently overseeing motion cap-
Habib Zargarpour is Associate Visual Effects Supervi-
ture production at Weta Digital for The Lord of the
sor at Industrial Light & Magic. He is a recipient of
Rings: The Two Towers and was the Director of
the British Academy Award for Best Achievement in
Motion Capture at Square Pictures for Final Fantasy:
Visual Effects, as well as being nominated for an
The Spirits Within and The Matrix: Flight of the
Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual
Osiris. He has professionally created digital anima-
Effects for his work on both The Perfect Storm and
tions for 16 years. During this time, he was the Inter-
Twister. His other credits include the upcoming Signs,
active Director at Acclaim Entertainment for the
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, Spawn,
multi-platinum selling Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, and
Star Trek: First Contact,Jumanji, Star Trek: Genera-
he also co-created the first digitized home video game
tions, and The Mask. Habib joined ILM in the early
in 1986, WWF: Superstars ofWrestling.
'90s, after working as a graphic artist and fine arts
illustrator since 1981. He received his B.A.S.C. in
mechanical engineering from the University of British
vi About the Authors
Columbia in Vancouver and went on to graduate with Technical Editors
distinction in industrial design from the Art Center
College of Design in Pasadena in 1992. Remington Scott
See above.
Student Contributors
Mark Bamforth
Robert Helms
Mark Bamforth works in the Multimedia Department
Robert Helms is a graduate student pursuing a Master at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He has been working
of Fine Arts in digital production arts at Clemson Uni- with 3D applications for 9 years and programming for
versity. He received his Bachelor of Science in electri- 19. His animated short Space Station Fly-Through
cal engineering from Clemson University. He particu- was screened at Siggraph 2000. He is currently work-
larly enjoys the programming and modeling aspects of ing toward various continued education degrees in
the field. In his spare time Robert enjoys reading, Maya and special effects at New York University's
painting miniatures, and SCUBA diving when he has Center for Advanced Digital Applications.
enough money.
Eric Kunzendorf
Rebecca Johnson
See above.
Rebecca Johnson, from Sumter, South Carolina, is
completing work on a Master of Fine Arts in digital Keith Reicher
production arts at Clemson University. She was
Keith Reicher is a multimedia artist/3D animator cur-
trained as a visual artist at Lander University, and her
rently freelancing in New York. He graduated from
interest in commercial design evoked enthusiasm for
Pratt Institute with a Master of Fine Arts in computer
computer-generated art. She enjoys combining her
graphics. Keith is the sole creator of the 3D animated
interests in art and computer design through character
short Benjamin Task, on which he functioned as
development and animation. While studying at Clem-
writer, modeler, animator, and music composer. His
son, she has participated in many animated produc-
interest in visual effects and animation began with the
tions, undertaking roles as art director, modeler, and
first Star Wars movie. He is now working toward a
animator. Currently she is researching impressionistic
career in the film industry.
rendering techniques. Rebecca hopes to continue to
work in the field designing and modeling characters.
Joshua E. Tomlinson
Jacob Richards Joshua E. Tomlinson is a techie by trade but an artist
at heart. He has a love for both the technical and aes-
Jacob Richards started programming when he was 11
thetic aspects of CGI. He receieved his Bachelor of Sci-
years old and worked on everything from the C-64 to
ence in computer science from Wofford College in
the Apple IIe and up to the SGI Onyx machines. He
2000 and is now finishing his Master of Fine Arts in
has been working in 3D for more than five years. He
digital production arts at Clemson University.
received his Bachelor of Science in computer science
from Clemson University in 1999 and is now working
toward his Master of Fine Arts in digital production
arts at Clemson. Jake is presently interning at Pixar
Animation Studios.
Contents
Part One Beginnings: Modeling 1
one Accelerating the Preproduction Process
Eric Kunzendorf
Getting from Concept to Animation 3
Scriptwriting, Thumbnailing, and Drawing 4
Modeling Methods 8
Texturing a Flour Sack 16
Setting Up for Animation 19
Creating an Arm 22
Blobbyman Comes to Life 31
Summary 33
two Modeling a SubDivision Surface Horse 35
Peter Lee
Creating Basic Shapes with NURBS 35
Conversion to Polygons 37
Modeling Details 39
Summary 49
three Organix—Modeling by
Procedural Means 51
MarkJennings Smith
Stop and Smell the Roses: A Primer 52
A Visual Maya Zoo 54
Bring Simple Life to a Creation 56
Abusing the Cone 59
Alternate Uses of Paint Effects 65
Organix and Paint Effects 68
Summary 81
VII
viii Contents
Part Two Putting Things in Motion:
Animation 83
four Animation and Motion Capture-
Working Together 85
Robin Akin and Remington Scott
What Is Motion Capture? 85
Animation and Mocap 86
When Should You Use Mocap? 7
Using Motion Capture as Reference or
Straight out of the Box 88
Cleaning Mocap 91
Summary 117
five Lip-Synching Real-World Projects 119
John Kundert-Gibbs, Dariush Derakhshani, and
RebeccaJohnson
Creating a Lip-Synched Animation 120
Hands-on Example 1: Lip-Synching Using Blend
Shapes and the Trax Editor 128
Hands-on Example 2: Photo-Real Facial Replacement
and Lip-Synching 149
Summary 163
Part Three The Numbers Game: Dealing with
Complex Systems 165
six Creating Crowd Scenes from a Small
Number of Base Models 167
Emanuele D'Arrigo
Not Only Big Studios 168
Heroes 169
Deploying Three Task Forces 170
Always Room for Improvement 192
Summary 193