Making magic on schedule and within budget

Making Magic
On Schedule and Within Budget
WITH MULTI-CORE PROCESSORS, HIGHPERFORMANCE GRAPHICS CARDS, and 64-bit
operating systems now the de facto standards in the
workstation market, the world’s top animators and computer
graphics artists are taking audiences to incredible places.
Children’s stories and long-appreciated fictional characters
spring vividly to life before our eyes, and stories that some
feared could never be told properly in a movie format are
delighting young and old alike.
All images in this ad were created and provided by Framestore.
The teams at Framestore, one of the world’s leading
digital film and video studios, are committed to creating
original imagery so real it suspends belief time and again.
Equipped with Intel®-based servers and a portfolio of
Autodesk’s market-leading software tools, all fully optimized
to set imaginations free, Framestore has been pushing
hardware and software vendors alike for over 20 years, just
to keep up with the ongoing expectations for improvements
in visual experiences.
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INTEL-SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT
“THE HARDWARE CONTINUES TO IMPROVE AT A RATE WHERE
THINGS WE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IMPOSSIBLE JUST A FEW
YEARS AGO ARE NOW COMMONPLACE.”
—Mike Mulholland, Computer Graphics Supervisor, Framestore
One of the ways Framestore artists
brought the planet Pangora to life in
the movie Avatar was by creating
incredible depth in scene after scene.
Framestore labored long and
hard over scenes such as this one,
recreating the London waterfront
for Robert Downey, Jr.,
in Sherlock Holmes.
The complex movement
of individual hairs on the
lion in The Chronicles of
Narnia: The Voyage of
the Dawn Treader
required an enormous
amount of processing
power to render.
Rob Hoffmann, senior product marketing manager at
Autodesk, put it in terms that anyone connected to computing
can understand. “The pace of change in our industry exceeds
even Moore’s Law,” said Montreal-based Hoffmann, a 15-year
veteran of both the hardware and software sides of content
creation. “Whether you’re talking about the move to high
definition content in TV, or the increased consumer
expectations in film and games, our customers are having to
produce considerably higher quality output in much less time,
and for smaller budgets than ever before.”
It’s a pace that feeds on itself and shows few signs of
abating. Computer graphics creators are some of the most
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demanding customers in the business, and they know what
they want. “As toolsets mature, virtually anything is possible.
Customers are not looking for flashy new features,”
Hoffmann said. “Instead, they want tools that are easier to
use alone or in combination, that they can customize and
extend to optimize their pipelines and provide differentiated
capabilities, and that help them to finish projects from paying
customers faster.”
Tools of Choice
Achieving new efficiencies in the production pipeline can
yield big benefits, and using the right tools can help attain
that goal. Autodesk, a world leader in 2D and 3D design, has
INTEL-SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT
been supplying those tools in the form of engineering and
entertainment software for the manufacturing, building and
construction, and media and entertainment markets for over
a decade. The last 15 Academy Award winners for Best
Visual Effects used Autodesk software within their CG
effects and animation pipelines. The newest versions of
that enable artists and designers to quickly ramp up for
production. The two versions are used by game developers,
visual effects artists, and graphic designers as well as
architects, designers, engineers, and visualization specialists.
Autodesk® MotionBuilder® software is used for high-volume
game-animation pipelines, director-driven virtual
cinematography, and real-time character simulations, while
Autodesk® Mudbox™ software is a highly intuitive digital
sculpting and texture painting solution.
Using Autodesk software along with Intel® hardware
helps to keep the hits coming. To see why, it’s worth taking a
look in more detail at Framestore’s production pipeline and
the challenges that go with it.
Framestore artists created the richly emotional facial animation
for the creatures in Where the Wild Things Are.
Thanks to meticulous attention to detail and masterful use
of Autodesk tools, the baby elephant truly came to life in
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang.
Autodesk tools have been optimized to run at peak efficiency
on the latest multi-core hardware, provide one-click
interoperability among various applications, and deliver
enhanced nondestructive and collaborative workflows.
One of the key tools for animators in professional studios,
such as Framestore, is Autodesk® Maya® 2011 3D animation
software. Newly available for Mac OS® X 64-bit, Maya 2011
offers enhanced tools for creating and reusing character
animation; an invigorated user interface; new solutions for
3D editorial, color management, scene segmentation, and
rotoscoping; a high-performance viewport display for large
scenes; and a completely new UI toolkit.
Both Autodesk® 3ds Max® software and Autodesk® 3ds
Max® Design software provide powerful, integrated 3D
modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing features
Peer into the Pipeline
Hoffmann explained how a modern pipeline is essential
to handle those giant, pixel-pushing jobs. “There are four
pillars in the modern pipeline,” he explained, “together, they
can help our customers overcome the incredible challenges
they face every day.”
PERFORMANCE
The first pillar is performance—with tools that leverage
state-of-the-art hardware that features high-quality displays,
64-bit architectures, accelerated GPUs, and multi-core
processors—like Intel® Westmere-based workstations that
offer up to 10 cores. Framestore’s Mike Mulholland, an
11-year veteran of the VFX industry and currently computer
graphics supervisor, said it’s hard to keep up with the
technology, but their IT staff is constantly rolling in new
equipment: “The hardware continues to improve at a rate
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INTEL-SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT
where things we would have thought impossible just a
few years ago are now commonplace.”
Alongside raw processing power, Autodesk
provides tools to help customers handle massive data
sets by segmenting them into manageable portions.
Scene segmentation enables artists to pull up specific
parts of a complex scene and work on just that aspect
­—not only increasing interactive performance, but also
providing opportunities to work collaboratively in
parallel. And the latest toolsets also offer increased,
scalable rendering capacity to help customers achieve
their final output faster.
PRODUCTIVITY
The second pillar relates to productivity. By
streamlining workflows, and developing enhanced,
in-context user interfaces that let the magic happen in a
natural and fluid manner, Autodesk enables artists to
complete the same tasks with fewer clicks, leaving them
more time and energy to devote to finessing their work.
What’s more, by providing focused toolsets for
specific tasks, Autodesk offers optimized environments
that help artists be more efficient, and to concentrate
on their creativity. “Artists are able to work faster and
more effectively, which is very exciting,” said
Mulholland. “For example, our recent adoption of
MotionBuilder has opened up new options for
performance capture that will allow new and exciting
ways for us to work with animation and
previsualization.”
CREATIVE CAPABILITIES
The third pillar focuses on creative capabilities,
Hoffmann explained. Combining the power of a
Westmere-based workstation with the newest tools
helps to give artists the features they have been
asking for: faster ways of blocking out a shot, highspeed modeling tools, and accelerated workflows for
character skinning and rigging. The simulation
capabilities and rendering tools are better, also. As fast
as users can dream up new things to ask for, they put
those features to use and ask for more.
About Framestore
Framestore has been working in digital film and video for over
20 years, creating original work that has helped make it the
largest visual effects and computer animation studio in Europe. It
also has a studio in New York City.
Movies
Framestore’s movie portfolio includes work on such films as
Australia, Avatar, Children of Men, The Dark Knight, The Golden
Compass, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Prince
Caspian, A Quantum of Solace, Salt, Sherlock Holmes, Superman
Returns, Wanted, and Where the Wild Things Are.
Film work in the pipeline for 2010–2011 includes:
lClash of the Titans
Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Gravity
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Parts I and II
Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Your Highnesss
Framestore’s projects in the commercial world include engaging
with numerous clients, including AT&T, Audi, Cadbury, Coca-Cola,
Federal Express, General Electric, Kia Motors, Nike, Pepsi, Skittles,
Smirnoff, and Sony.
Awards
Framestore has won numerous international awards, including
the 2008 Academy Award and BAFTA double for Achievement in
Special Effects, two Technical Academy Awards from the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, four BAFTA
Craft Awards and fourteen Primetime Emmy Awards. Below is
a partial list; the complete list can be found at:
http://www.framestore-cfc.com/#/Awards
Oscar* (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences Award)
2008 Oscar for Achievement in VFX: The Golden Compass
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Technical Achievement Awards:
1996 Pioneering work in the creation of the Digital Film
Compositing System
1995 Pioneering work in the field of film input scanning
Emmy* Awards
2006 Outstanding Animated Program: Walking With Monsters
Framestore’s Mulholland agreed with Hoffmann on
the importance of creative toolsets, explaining that
while production challenges facing Framestore continue
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2006 Best Commercial: Federal Express Stick 2003
Outstanding Animated Program: Chased by Dinosaurs
(continued on page 5)
INTEL-SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT
(continued from page 4)
2002 Outstanding Animated Program: Walking With Beasts
2002 Outstanding Visual FX: Dinotopia
2001 Outstanding Animated Program: The Ballad of Big Al
2000 Outstanding Visual FX: Walking With Dinosaurs
2000 Outstanding Animated Program: Walking With Dinosaurs
2000 Outstanding Main Title Design: The 10th Kingdom
1999 Outstanding Special FX: Alice in Wonderland
1998 Outstanding Special Visual FX: Merlin
1997 Outstanding Special Visual FX: The Odyssey
1996 Outstanding Special Visual FX: Gulliver’s Travels
London Effects and Animation Festival (LEAF)
2002 Commercials Animation: Xbox* Mosquito
2002 Commercals Live Action FX: Xbox Champagne
2002 TV Series: Dinotopia
2000 Commercials Live Action FX: Chrysler Golden Gate
2000 Titles, Idents & Stings: The 10th Kingdom
1999 Education and Training: Walking with Dinosaurs
1998 Titles, Idents & Stings: Tomorrow Never Dies
1994 Gold Award for Best Computer Animation Commercial:
‘West Lights’
1994 Gold Award for Best Computer Animation: ‘Ravel’s Bolero’
Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards
2010 Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature
Motion Picture: Sherlock Holmes
2008 VFX in a Commercial: Smirnoff Sea
2008 Animated Character: The Chemical Brothers
The Salmon Dance
2007 Outstanding Animated Character: Geico Chat
2006 Outstanding VFX: Walking with Monsters
2006 Outstanding VFX: Guinness noitulovE
2005 Outstanding Performance by an Animated Character
in a Live Action Motion Picture: Buckbeak, the Hippogriff in
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2005 Outstanding: Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets
2004 Outstanding VFX: Johnnie Walker Fish
2003 Best VFX: Dinotopia
2003 Best Character: Dinotopia
2003 Best Compositing: Dinotopia
to grow, the tools have been able to keep up.
“Framestore has been using Maya and the
Autodesk tools for many years,” Mulholland said.
“The current Autodesk tools are an evolution of
what we’ve used in the past, and they’re helping
us improve the workflow and quality of our assets.
Maya 2011 brings numerous modeling and rigging
improvements that have helped our teams. The
work in visual effects becomes more complicated
every year; the amount and resolution of our
assets increases every year. The Autodesk suite of
tools allows us to deal with the complexity of the
shots while producing stunning work.”
PIPELINE EFFICIENCES
The fourth pillar of the modern production
pipeline is based on pipeline efficiencies. Hoffmann
noted that Autodesk tools support nonlinear
workflows, where multiple artists can attack a
project from multiple angles simultaneously. “You
can’t think of production in a linear fashion
anymore,” Hoffmann said, “where you have to do
step 1 before you can do step 2, before doing step
3. Instead, step 3 can be done at the exact same
time as previsualization is taking place.” Hoffmann
pointed to the new virtual moviemaking work that
took place with the production of Avatar, where
Framestore teams pulled in the actual motioncapture data and created the final scene geometry
before they even created the character.
Recently, with the Maya software, Autodesk
moved to the Nokia Qt* user interface. This
enables increased customization of the user
experience, so artists in the production facilities
can modify the software to best fit their
production work needs. “With Maya 2011 we are
taking advantage of the latest versions of Python*
and Qt to update our internal pipeline and internal
tools,” explained Mulholland, who is a big fan of the
new flexibility. “We’ve found that the ability to
customize and extend Maya is its greatest
strength,” he said. “Some very specialized artists
focus only on modeling, texturing, or lighting, and
now they can tailor the user interface specifically
to the task at hand, increasing their efficiency.”
2003 Best Matte Painting: Dinotopia
2003 Best VFX: Xbox Mosquito
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INTEL-SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT
For Framestore, the sheer number
of tools its team uses is staggering.
“We use a wide range of software
packages,” Mulholland explained,
“including Maya 2011, [Pixar] PRMan*,
[Foundry] Nuke*, [Apple] Shake*, [Side
Effects Software] Houdini*, [Adobe]
Photoshop*, [Autodesk®] Mudbox™,
[Pixologic] ZBrush*, Mari, [Autodesk®]
ImageModeler™, and MotionBuilder. We
are hoping to see greater convergence
of the 3D packages. For example, we
have recently installed a new
3D motion capture suite and have
begun to use MotionBuilder. Having
MotionBuilder more tightly integrated
with Maya will really help this process.”
Keeping the ‘Wow’ Factor
Studios that have modern
production pipelines, regardless of
whether they are in films, games, or
television, must constantly balance the
requirements to deliver higher volume
and higher quality against tighter
schedules and smaller budgets. Those
who can manage in that environment
will survive—it’s that simple.
Staying competitive in today’s very
aggressive markets means studios
Framestore put a staggering amount of detail into this Pepsi Rising commercial using the full
suite of Autodesk tools.
must be running on the latest
processors and architectures, have the
fastest operating systems and the
optimal graphics technology, use the
freshest software tools, and employ
the best people to pull it all together.
Studios that continue to invest in their
technologies will gain a competitive
advantage because they’ll be able to
bridge the gap between the resources
they have and what they are being
expected to deliver.
In the past, a great film might have
had 150 to 250 3D shots, tops. Today,
there might be several thousand 3D
shots within a film. The level of detail
has increased to the point where the
eye-popping “Wow!” factor has been
replaced by something completely
different—audiences don’t even
recognize where reality stops and
computer-generated assets kick in.
Autodesk’s Hoffmann explained it this
way: “Basically, the biggest compliment
an artist can be paid is, ‘I never saw
your work.’ In other words, the scene
was so photorealistic, it passed
unnoticed. Try this test the next time
you’re watching television: look closely
at the ads from the top automobile
manufacturers. Most of the car
commercials that you see today don’t
have real cars in them.”
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