The recently wrapped Siggraph computer graphics and animation confab (7/31-8/4) produced further evidence that digital color grading and the digital intermediate (DI) process are making inroads in the visual effects world.
At the conference held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, a host of companies demonstrated some of the latest software-based color grading systems, scanners, film recorders, servers and the like. And the visual effects industry is very interested; in fact, in the feature arena, an increasing number of visual effects supervisors are attending digital color grading sessions as well as producing additional effects in DI environments.
Richard Antley, product manager of DI systems for Munich-headquartered Arri, which showed its Arriscan and Arrilaser film recorder at Siggraph, said, “DI is expanding, and this is an obvious place for it to show up. DI grew out of what developed as visual effects–scanning, recording, color manipulation–“
Siggraph was also a particularly timely event for DI discussion as a week earlier, the studio consortium Digital Cinema Initiatives announced that it had finalized its digital cinema specification (see related story) for 2k and 4k cinema content. Marc Petit, VP of product development and operations at Autodesk Media and Entertainment (formerly Discreet) billed this announcement as “a confirmation of the 2k and 4k trend… We hope this announcement will move this forward.”
For Siggraph attendees like Michael Givens, director/cinematographer via Los Angeles and London-based blueYed Pictures, this was a place to learn. “DI is just about to explode,” he said. “And the tools are getting better and better every week.”
Autodesk was on hand with the newly shipping version 2.6 of its Lustre color grading software that includes a new editorial metadata architecture and subsystem, and Coral Springs, Fla.-based da Vinci exhibited its Resolve color correction software. Meanwhile, Cupertino-headquartered Apple Computer demoed a low-cost DI-style workflow in an off of the floor suite that include its Final Cut Pro and Shake, along with San Diego-based Silicon Color’s Final Touch Mac-based color grading software.
And in conjunction with Santa Clara-based NVIDIA, which launched its Quadro FX 4000 SDI graphics card for postproduction and DI work, Munich-based Iridas was on hand to announce that its SpeedGrade DI will include full support for Quadro FX 4000, allowing colorists and facilities using SpeedGrade DI to review their work in real time on HD broadcast monitors. A stone’s throw from that booth was Miami-headquartered Assimilate demonstrating its Scratch color grading and DI tool with the new NVIDIA card.
Software color correction is still a very young product category, despite the large amount of attention it has been receiving thanks to the interest in digitally color grading features as part of the DI process. But there are still post veterans who maintain that none of these systems is ready for primetime. Autodesk’s Petit said there are two areas that they can expect to see further maturation: creative features and workflow improvements.
Of course, there was plenty for the core Siggraph audience, including new versions of leading software such as Alias’s Maya, Autodesk’s 3ds max and Softimage XSI. As well, there were some new product previews, including Tewksbury, Mass.-based Avid Technology’s Softimage|Face Robot facial animation technology, and Auckland-based Massive Software’s Massive Jet crowd replication software.
UBER COOL SHOW DEMO
And there were also some cutting edge surprises. This year, SHOOT found a cool demo at the booth of Vicon, the Lake Forest, Calif.-based maker of motion capture technology.
Remember the sequences in futuristic Spielberg film Minority Report when Tom Cruise uses hand movements to locate and sift through video material? Well, visitors to the Vicon booth got their first live look at this technique. The demonstrator was standing in front of three large screens, wearing gloves with reflectors; he was circled by Vicon’s new MX 40 four million pixel cameras used for motion capture, now in use by commercial making companies including L.A.-based House Of Moves and New York-based Curious Pictures. This motion capture setup was combined with gesture recognition software from L.A.-based G-Speak, which enabled the demonstrator to use hand movements to select and play clips from a show reel, as well as do actual work using a graphical user interface from a software program. Imagine the future possibilities.
At the Avid booth, demos of the new Softimage|Face Robot showed that it is designed for 3-D artists working on projects ranging from film to commercials to games. The technology is built on a new computer model of facial soft tissue that mimics the full range of emotions portrayed by the human face. In addition to this product, Avid unveiled version 5.0 of Softimage|XSI. This latest version includes new features, like Ultimapper, a map generation tool; and Gator, a property transfer system for merging fully textured and animated 3-D models. In addition to running on standard 32-bit CPUs, XSI v.5.0 will also be available in a native 64-bit configuration.
Toronto-headquartered Alias previewed Maya 7, billed as a feature-packed release offering new and improved tools for fast, realistic character animation, streamlined modeling and texturing, visual effects, and increased productivity. “We involved Maya users earlier and more extensively than ever before in our development process; the features and enhancements in this release have been guided by extensive feedback from leading studios and individuals worldwide,” reported senior product manager Jill Ramsey.
And a year after acquiring Kaydara, developer of productivity tool MotionBuilder, Alias launched MotionBuilder version 7 software with newly extended character animation capabilities, improved interoperability with popular 3-D packages and productivity enhancements.
Meanwhile, Autodesk unveiled its new 3ds Max 8 3-D software “There are four specific areas of focus we are invested in for 3ds Max 8 that will address the present and future demands of increasingly complex 3-D production environments,” said Martin Vann, VP of worldwide sales, marketing and support, Autodesk. “Those areas are character development, advanced modeling and texturing, a more comprehensive development framework and complex data and asset management.”
Autodesk also showed newly released versions of such products as aforementioned Lustre, as well as version 7 of Fire and Smoke, both of which include a 64-bit architecture for providing more addressable memory for high-resolution projects.
Massive Software, developer of the Massive artificial intelligence software system developed to generate digital crowds for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, demoed its latest version of Massive and launched Massive Jet, a new full featured application that offers “ready to run agents” which customers can use to shorten prepro with pre-built skeletons and body dynamics and actions.
Massive also played a show reel demonstrating an increasing number of applications in the commercial community, including “Big Ad,” a new comedic spot for Carlton Beer, with visual effects from Animal Logic, Sydney, via agency George Patterson Partners, Melbourne. This epic, Lord of the Rings-style spot features an enormous crowd of digital warriors running across a sweeping landscape. Accompanying music is also epic in scope–and then come lyrics, which go something like this: “This is a big ad– this is a big, expensive ad–this ad is so expensive it better sell some bloody beer–” An aerial shot shows that the crowd has formed the shape of a man drinking a beer.
Another example was Budweiser’s “Everyday Heroes” that broke in late May via Waylon Ad, St. Louis. The spot, directed and lensed by Robert Richardson, ASC, via bicoastal Tool of North Amerca, features visual effects from A52, Santa Monica, which tapped Massive to create a digital crowd of 10,000.
Massive was one of more than a dozen New Zealand based companies that shared space in a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise booth, which also featured commercial post and effects houses such as Auckland-based Digital Post and Flux Animation Studio.
The international nature of Siggraph drew groups from many other parts of the world, including MADE–the Macedonian Association for Digital Entertainment–which was also on hand promoting Macedonia’s commercial post and effects companies, as well as technological prowess and incentive programs.