When I first saw Coraline a couple years back I remember thinking a bucketful of thoughts. Before Coraline, I was shallow to think that when making something in 3D, it meant it had too look 3D and even more narrow to think that sometimes when 3D is made it tends to look too "3D-ish", too generic, without the saving graces of overhauled design or substance to make it unique.
And then there's the trickery of making 3D look like something set apart from what it really is... A trend that seems to be a predominant front-liner in the future of entertainment. Technologies are being created and concocted with the successors of our past times, and a hybrid avenue that resembles the antique visual lusters of yesterday opens with the ease of new inventions, perfected techniques, and creativities of today.
Laika had a few movies to master their niche. As I know of, but am not evident, "Coraline" was their test run, and now Laika has a following of eager fans expectant of there current work "Box Trolls" due for release in 2014. Here is the Trailer, if you haven't seen it:
"Box Trolls"
The presentation, my favorite from sigGRAPH this year, was called, "The Seamless Fusion of Stop-Motion and Visual Effects Technologies in LAIKA's Feature Films". Running the spotlight was Georgina Hayns, supervisor of puppet fabrications, and Brian McLean, director of Rapid Prototyping.
The presentation kicked off with perfect ingredient to draw in its audience... leading us straight into the fascinating origins of what helped get Laika to where they are today. Georgina credited her past mentors-- The mentors of many other stop motion fanatics, I'm sure.
So I did more in depth research...
Honestly, I expected her to go right to Ray Harryhausen. But she didn't. She took us back even before times of the recently deceased legend, to the cusp of the early 1900's, when the first pangs of puppet animation experiments began under the tests of Laditaw Starewicz, who had completed a few successfully documented films some which dead insects were cast in the starring roles.
She then moved onto Willis O'Brien, who most notable achievements involved the creation of the first 'ball and socket armature' instead of wood, which allowed more flexibility while animating, and whose most notable film "King Kong", rings out across the globe in an obvious recognition. I believe he was the first to apply the use of latex and foam latex, instead of the clay, as well...
Fast forward to today, the use of all of these materials are still in heavy effect, but now they use mechnical gears with the turn of allen keys... and there's a higher usage of silicone replacing foam latex, as silicone currently allows the most elasticity and the least amount of 'fixing' between shots.
...A little of how far silicone can go....
...Yup, good stuff...
Then there was George Pal-- where Laika picked up a beneficial but tedious technique called "replacement animation". He was the first animator to create hand carved replacement pieces. A trick that's name speaks for itself. Laika primarily applies this technique for lip movements and eyebrows, but I'm sure it finds its way into other components of their characters as well...
They implored the help of the 3D printer to expedite the process to building those pieces. And came up with a final of 40,000 printed faces, each hand painted, totaling a combination of 1.5 million expressions:
-- each that were compiled into expressions kits that were organized into stock room waiting to be assembled according to some kind of shot list and then shot.
What I'd personally really love to see? The SHOTLIST that organizes all these faces! I'm fascinated at what kind of organizing, scheduling, and structure that Laika must follow.
But back to Geroge Pal? He was responsible for taking parts and replacing them on hinges, instead of remolding them into place on based on estimations. It required tons or organization, I'm sure, and took a good fifty years to gain recognition... its effect has a more fluid feel in the end. It also helped as it allowed camera perspectives to be changed without hassle. He received a couple academy award nominations for some of his puppets, dubbed "Puppetoons", which I will have to watch at some point and report back...
Actually, I should plan on watching the work on all of these artists listed here. :-)
In any event, it's strange, because the more research I do, the less credit I see he, out of most animators that I'm studying, have received... Replacement animation seemed to be a wild concept in its handling, but well worth its labor for the look achieved in the end result...
Next, Georgina went to the rounds of Claymation... what seems to be the opposite of replacement parts and luxuries of working with silicone. It did, however, have a pleasing effect it had on its maker, as authenticity was established in the fingerprints left behind-- Something called "Texture Stamping", a very important technique that computer artists tend to forget or, get inhibited by, when building their own models. Some artists specifically add in their own custom texture stamps to brand the look of their work....
The coined "Claymation" sculptor surfaced around my era of growing up, and one in particular was a favorite of mine during the Christmas holidays. One that I miss a lot even up to today for its originality. For some reason, I never see in aired on television any more....
"The California Raisins" was created by an artist named Will Vinton. The history of Will Vinton has close roots to Laika, as his studio was founded in Oregon as well. Cited in Wikipedia, Laika had actually become a Vinton Studios successor as business became mixed with money and investments. I'll cap this paragraph, by writing that money unfortunately has more power than anything else to control the markets of this world -- creativity, ethic, reputation, experience, and strings of any types of networking, even management, they really don't mean anything... My own humble opinion.
I do admire Laika's work. A lot. I'm actually really anticipating the release of "Box Trolls"-- as Laika's execution always seems flawless, its story's in conjunction with its unique look, as trademarked as Disney/Pixar are to their look.
I have yet to see more of Vinton's work, outside of "The California Raisins", although reading up on him-- he (also) has an entire artillery of innovated stop motion projects, including many projects based around ball-and-socket rigs. But, in the end, I believe he had trouble getting his feature length work funded after the economic downturn of September 11th, as it caused afflictions in business relationships with Warner Brothers as discrepancies arose on where Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride" was to be filmed. Don't quote me, but I had read that Burton may have also had a difficult adjustment merging into the idea of computer generation with in his work... In his biography, "Burton On Burton" he admittedly was almost opposed to using it in his work at one point but considered the idea of acclimating into its potential in the future. That conflict may have been around the same time period... and perhaps, "The Corpse Bride", a movie with such an abundance of hand animated stop motion, that spared the extreme manufacturing capabilities of computers, couldn't be afforded with the deficits rippling through America.
I don't know the full story, of course. It's just a speculation.
Back to the Vinton Studios issue, funding is a typical problem for most artists over the world, fledglings included, trying to start a business or recreate their ideas and dreams. No new news to any of us reading this. Vinton's era, though, was one where I have mixed emotions, as computers were probably dominating Claymation at that point. Thankfully Vinton went on to reestablish his name and his business, and the age of computers and 'hybrid' animation opened up many, many doors for artistic opportunities. Vinton regrew his company to a company called Freewill Entertainment. Burton flourished. Laika boomed. The consumer is happy. So, all is well!
Many recognized animators came from the Vinton studios, outside of Mr. Vinton himself, of course, including clay-painter Joan Gratz and Craig Bartlett, who was responsible for establishing a more '3D' look.
Another Claymation favorite from childhood? Well, Gumby, of course!
If you'd like to read more on Will and his work, I placed a link to
Will Vinton's Biography Here. Of all the artists I researched to draft this post, I found his journey most interesting, as it landed in a technological turning point for the arts and the visual effects industry.
On the reverse end, stop motion advancements began with refurbishing of the armature. Now bear in mind, I am a complete amateur with an armature ;-)
.... and that I am still in research while writing this....
I believe it all started with the adaptation to the construction of a ball and socket fixture, and how it had become modified over the years to consist of hinges, grips, gears, and whatever else works to get physics involved and a good 'pulley effect' under way...
...And Finally the blessed allen key put to good use, controlling the animatable registrations, which adjusts the degree of movement that a character can have...
The main software that is used by Laika and other companies to guide these components into a functional skeletal system is a program called Inventor made by Autodesk. Inventor provides the resources to a bring a concepted design into a physical structure that can be printed out with a solid material in on all 3D axises, X-Y, and Z -- this defines what is called a 3D prototype.
It is suggested on the Autodesk website that Inventor is crafted specifically for mechanical design. Working in 3D, I say there must underlyings advantages of using this program versus a program like Maya or 3Ds Max. What? I cannot say for sure.. It seems to be .dwg compatible, which is the standard file format meant for printing stuff like so in multitudes of different materials and chemical compounds, I think.... Some examples of mechanical prints used by Laika of Feet, Chests, etc:
I am TRULY trying to keep this post as closely related to its title as possible! So, I will look into it Inventor further and possibly comment on this program deeper in future post. If you'd like to read up on Invetor's specifications yourself,
Here's The Link.
Gerogina noted some of the fallbacks of using different materials, a continuous battle for any manufacturer or artist out there working with the new printing fad. Which material is the BEST or most reliable material? For the purpose of animation, she says, that there are still many fallbacks. One, which involves surface quality, and another which involves the desire for a durable metal with some spring.
I would imagine that Metal is great for internal structures, but the differences in the using plastic versus powder based materials for replacement parts on the outside surfaces of the model, results in drastically differing outcomes, meaning various types of treatments are needed to get the look developed into a production-ready piece. As well, plastic pieces need to be hand-painted which present an overhaul of workload required:
A clear difference is in the sharpness of the features, and a reason why plastic may be hard to work with as far as organic adjustments, but obviously useful in its cheap reproduction and it lightweight strength. I could see it being a useful underlying structure to compliment its metal counterparts, as it is flexible... A reason why it this image demonstrates the use of plastic in a foot:
Here's where Zbrush comes in, or what Georgina describes as the point where preliminaries where the "CG Artist becomes the engineer". First, the model needs to be scanned by a 3D scanner from whatever starting resource they have, most likely a sculpture, I guess, then it is fixed and retopologized using Topogun, rigged, and then subdivided with all extra detail needed for a finer print exaggerated in Zbrush-- in order to achieve the same crispness in a powder based print that is achieved when a printing with plastic:
The engineering part surfaces when considering the rig of the puppet versus its replacement pieces needed for its stop-motion animation!
Test molds and adjoining parts are then created, tested, and adjusted to see which materials work best for the role and to test out different techniques to work with the mechanics:
It seemed that as technology merged from clay and foam latex, even more incentive was placed on trying to craft the best materials possible and so Laika invested some trial and error to incorporating silicone in the process as well with a variety of mixing, dyes, and watering down techniques:
I'm sure Laika wouldn't give away all of the mystery as to what goes on behind the scenes. But their tips of course are were well appreciated by their captivated audience. Well, me. :-)
I wish I could have learned even more about the processes that go into making a stop motion production at Laika, like the brand of supplies that they use in-house and the science behind how they craft a working fixture underneath their puppets. It's fascinating how much depth goes into it, and even more fascinating, how they seem to have perfected their techniques.
The outside workings on the characters, like their skin treatments and clothing, also enthralled me. She discussed their fabrication as a separated entity from their generation within computer software. The only string of connection to the computer was in painting textures and style layout.
For instance, the clothing was designed and then built as templates in Photoshop and then printed, I believe. I'm not sure if I was clear on the exact process, as it wasn't a highlight of the presentation, but she had mentioned that the fabrics were then either cut by hand, or due to their finite size, extracted or etched out by a laser. An example of just how small the scale was at points:
And skin textures, although they were hand-painted in photoshop, the colors in their prototype appeared inaccurate and had to be calibrated accordingly to match their initial design and the capabilities to the 3D printer. Some (blurry) examples of their hand painted texture maps:
And then she loan the floor to Brian McLean, who further incepted his support in breakthrough of 3D printing as a strengthening force in both facial animation and stop-motion, demonstrating the process of his Rapid Prototyping department-- taking the traditional and computer art teamwork, to create the first hybrid puppets. I haven't printed myself, but am learning more about the process more and more. It almost seems crucial as in establishing myself a professional artist. I do not underestimate the importance of keeping up with the latest trends and learning all I can about industry...
Outside of the prints of exotic custom materials and micron sizes, such as the glass seen here...
The industry printer of choice seems to be the Zcorp printers, as they as used by Pixar's as well.... Being that the Zcorps are powder based, they are extra steps needed to prepare the prototypes. See Pixar's demo using the zCorp printer
HERE.
The process in a nutshell after sending the finalized model to the machine involves, the vacuuming out of the printer and then the careful removal of all excess powder from the prototypes. The benefit of Zcorp, or powder based printers, is that the powder is reusable-- which makes it economical for mass production. The downside is that is takes a lot of tender loving care afterwards:
To harness results like this:
Summing up this incredibly long post (in which one was definitely due), we were given the opportunity to take these photographs during the production as well as snap a few pictures of the starring roles afterwards in some close up shots:
I'd just like to thank wanted to send out a large thank to my new friend,
Joel Meyerowitz for taking the time out of his day to send this awesome set of pictures my way in order for me to put together this blog. Always great to meet such a supportive network of artists at the sigGRAPGH's.
Another thank you also to Georgina Hayns, Brian McLean, and Laika for setting up such an inspiring under-the-hood demonstration of their studio and all of their innovations... Keep up the great work!
And to whoever out there reads this blog, THANK YOU AS WELL!
I close this post with the hope to get in another recap of sigGRAPH Anaheim 2013, but lately have been caught up in my own personal and professional ventures. It was another year loaded with great experiences, lots of learning, and onslaughts of tremendous talent. As always, I was glad to attend.
Within the next few days I should have a few additional pieces of my own uploaded.
I hope that you will drop by again soon!
