COP 2 Research and Study Task 1

 LINKS

• Dinh, C. (2019) Making Of: How VFX Transforms Mark Ruffalo to Hulk in 'Avengers: Endgame'. Available at: https://www.marvel.com/articles/movies/how-vfx-transforms-mark-ruffalo-to-hulk-avengers-endgame (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

How Marvel decided to consider human features more in the face of the hulk. 3D mapping Mark Ruffalo's face.

•  Industrial Light & Magic. (2020) Achieve. Available at: https://wIndustrial Light & Magicww.ilm.com/archive/ (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Links to documentaries of the production process for ILM's different projects. Avengers and Hulk for a hulk evolution from live action filming, to beginning CGI. 

• trueblue26 (2008) 'The Incredible Hulk: Making of the Monster' Youtube, 16 October. Available at: https://youtu.be/HWPJO3e2NoI (accessed 5 October 2020)

Marvel didn't want an actor to play the Hulk, only Bruce Banner but Edward made the decision to give input on movement. ILM 

• Corridor Crew (2020) 'VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi 35' Youtube, 24 October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADr3r_mM5h4&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=10 (Accessed: 24 October 2020)

This is something I'm naturally subscribed to, and I was amazed when the crew started looking in to the evolution of the Hulk, after I had done my research in to the subject of the MCU movies. They actually introduced me to the fact that there is a Hulk movie before Norton's which is a lot closer to a comic book style. They personally thought that the original 2003 version was better than the Norton version with hyper realistic human anatomy, as they showed off too much and they didn't like that you could see every vein tensing. 

• Vfx Breakdown (2018) 'Making of Thanos In Avengers: Infinity War' Youtube, 10 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmz2VmPMgRI&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=2&t=1s (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Making Thanos in Infinity War. Helmet capture. Screen test with a fake script - tests lighting. ZBrush model of the head, and one person goes in and adds all the details like wrinkles etc. 

• Gray, A. (2014) A Brief History of Motion-Capture in the Movies. Available at: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/11/a-brief-history-of-motion-capture-in-the-movies (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Disney Christmas Carol 3D - Jim Carrey motion captured scrooge at every age in the story, as well as playing all three of the ghosts. 

• Milligan, M. (2019) 'Ziva VFX 1.6 Introduces Automated Anatomy Transfers' Animation Magazine. Available at: https://www.animationmagazine.net/technology/ziva-vfx-1-6-introduces-automated-anatomy-transfers/ (Accessed: 5 October 2020) 

Automated anatomy transfer - revolution helping to speed up production by months. Stops people individually recreating every piece of anatomy for every background character in a shot. The anatomy can now be mapped on to a completely different body. 

 [Figure 5]

• Autodesk (2010) 'Avatar presentation at Autodesk University' Youtube, 4 February. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmPitTWKudI&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=5 (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

Companies using Maya - Avatar. A big turnaround in motion capture. Actors in suits - polygonal triangles. 

• Le Blanc, B. (2019) 'Lighting in Arnold for Maya | Lighting Tutorial' Youtube, 12 January. Available at: https://youtu.be/iUfCRXbL9ZM (Accessed: 5 October 2020)

The importance of lighting and how it can be demonstrated in Maya. More for personal use during practical responses. 

BOOKS

Understanding Motion Capture for Computer Animation by Alberto Menache (Second edition) Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.  

HARVARD 

Menache, A. (2011) Understanding Motion Capture for Computer Animation. Second edition. United States: Elsevier, Inc.

• Page 3 "Motion capture in the entertainment field is the descendant of rotoscoping" 

• Rotoscoping was invented in 1915 by cartoonist Max Fleischer

• "Walt Disney Studios used some rotoscoping in 1937" partially on Snow White and the Prince

•Page 4 not many companies admit to using rotoscoping in their animations because people "consider it cheating".

• Current motion capture was used in military and medical practice before it was used for film, as people thought they were a long ways off understanding the human figure. Only to have a Director appear with six human figures made using technology,  a week after this public announcement.

• Page 10  In 1988, Pacific Data Images asked Rick Lazzarini to create a device for the upper body and head. This was called the exoskeleton. It was used in the movie Toys, which was "the first motion picture in which a digital character was successfully created using motion capture."

[Figure 6]

• Page 30 Digital armatures 

Key framing armatures are "not considered motion capture systems because they're not driven by a live performer" but their movements translate key frame in to digital software. But some of these are used as real time armatures controlled by people like a puppet. The DID (Dinosaur Input Device) was used on Jurassic Park to animate some of the dinosaurs. 

The character in the animation always had a similar structure to the armature. (Where as we can now scale people up and make people taller than the motion capture data - as shown in the Maya Avatar video link above.) 

[Figure 7]

•Page 47 Start of Chapter 2 "Motion Capture Case Studies And Controversy" 'Satan's rotoscope' is a name used to define motion capture. 'less technically oriented people's could start finding jobs in animation thanks to the rise in softwares like maya. 

Page 48, Video games were the first to sign up for the more cost effective electromagnetic and optical motion capture. They still have "70% of the total usage" today. People thought "Motion capture can replace character animators" 

Page 49-50 Though Avatar broke box office records, "none of the actors on Avatar was nominated for an Oscar", as people disregarded the people behind the motion capture as an acting job. And I still believe that that is true to the day, especially in things like Guardians of the Galaxy, where you have the characters of Kraglin and Rocket Raccoon. One physically played by, and one motion captured by Sean Gunn. Most people I know didn't know he was the motion capture, nor took his role seriously as Rocket - as Bradley Cooper the voice actor takes all of the credit. Usually people who motion capture also do the voice, so Sean was disregarded until around End Game's popularity.

• Page 67-71

Polar Express production started with the idea that they would film actors on a green screen and then overlay with the same kind of painted art style of the books. During the production of this, a small team were given a few minutes with Tom Hanks, where they tested motion capture. Expecting this to be a failure, one man went ahead with testing the data from the motion capture, whilst the rest of the team were overlaying with a green screen. The green screen tests failed as they "looked like they had a skin disease", but they kept trying. Eventually, the motion capture results were shown to the Director and the green screen was scrapped , and the work load of the animation relied on the original small team. 

They needed 70 plus cameras on a person to make this work in such a scale, but the technology wasn't available. Companies thought they were crazy and refused to help, besides Vicon. They created a "daisy chain" by essentially stitching together the calibrations of five systems in a particular order. They had to do this in a sound stage, as one problem with the setting would cause a malfunction. They had to make up a "dance" to calibrate the systems every time they wanted to use it.

They ended up with 84 cameras in total in just one of the three motion capture stages, 70 from Vicon.

Most people were trained in motion capture during filming because no one knew what it was. 

Placing 152 markers on up to 24 different unique faces every day of shooting. 

There were three post production groups: one put the clips together to understand the order and real time. Second was data trackers, delivering the facial data. Third brought every shot in to maya and made clothing and colours and effects. 

People were aware that Polar Express was "probably the most ground breaking" piece if motion capture (- Jerome Chen, visual effects supervisor). They are aware not in terms of their visual display, but they paved the road for new camera integrations and technology compatibility.

Maya for Games: Modelling and Texturing Techniques with Maya and Mudbox by Michael Ingrassia. Focal Press. (READ BUT NOT USED - TAKEN FROM LIBRARY) This book focuses on tutorials. How to make a realistic hand, face and how to map textures might be useful when thinking about motion capture or at least mapping. 

HARVARD

ArtMZ. (2019) '3D modeling human's face, head (Autodesk Maya Tutorial)' Youtube, 21 November. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blgs8-Z5Z7c&list=PLoQebOr539lXyhXT01rihKRtFlkdi3jM1&index=3&t=257s (Accessed: 4th December 2020)

Final outcome help - making a face. 

(All of the above links dated 5th October 2020) 

(Motion capture book, all dated 12th of october besides the polar express chapter on the 18th) 

[Figure 8]

At the moment, my ideas are very confusing. As much as I have a lot to say about history and social views within animation - I think the problem might be that i have too much to ay and too little to show. Last year, my feedback in most topics was to stop hiding behind my words. I'd like to do something visual topic, with a very visual media for the essay such as a comic. I know I would like Maya to be a final outcome, which is why I looked a lot in to visual effects - which is something I am very fascinated in as little as I know about it. So I would like to learn more.