SIGGRAPH 2021
Below are demo videos and summaries research work that was done for this talk. Please do not share this content, this is solely for demonstration purposes of my research experience. You can find the full SIGGRAPH publication here.
DreamWorks Art-Driven Shot Sculpting Toolset
ABSTRACT
This research presents DreamWorks’ art-driven shot sculpting toolset used by the Character Effects (CFX) Department to efficiently and logically sculpt shapes of character skin, clothing, hair/fur, and props in shots. The ability to visualize an Animator’s drawovers during CFX shot work introduced an improved visual communication language between Animators and CFX artists. The toolset’s wide range of shot sculpting abilities helps achieve the different artistic styles of various films and enhances the visual impact of animation. This efficient toolset makes the shot sculpting an intuitive process for an artist rather than one littered with cleanup work.
INTRODUCTION
With the advent of different artistic styles in various DreamWorks films, the shots in those films are heavily art-directed to match the style and increase visual impact. Animation and CFX simulation rigs for assets such as hair, fur, cloth, skin, and props produce shapes derived from physical, procedural, or animation rig controls. Heavy art direction, however, requires shapes beyond those possibilities, such as clean and simple silhouettes, organic/functional/artistic hair or string shapes, stretched shapes to emulate motion blur, or cloth wrinkles in precise locations, just to name a few. Often times the art direction involves achieving specific shapes to camera view, which can lead to distorted shapes in 3-D. The sculpted shapes may need to travel and blend with animation. Using traditional finaling tools such as 3-D Lattice, 3-D Sculpt Brush, Soft Modification, or pushing and pulling of vertices, can create painstaking work to achieve the complex shapes. The shot sculpting toolset described below allows for an efficient and logical approach to sculpting, allowing the artist to achieve the shapes and forms required by complex art-direction.
SIGGRAPH Talk 2021
To your left you will find the sections of the paper that I presented during the conference: section 2 (Visual Communication: Drawovers) and section 4.2 (Volumetric Curve Sculpting). I cover the importance of drawovers in the production pipeline and the tools that we have written to transfer the artistic concepts into a 3D package. Additionally, I talk about the methodology used to create volumetric sculpts for curves.
Please excuse the dad jokes.
4.2 Volumetric Curve Sculpting
2. VISUAL COMMUNICATION : DRAWOVERS
The VolumetricCurveSculpt tool grows curves volumetrically through a convex NURBS cylinder/tube. A curve’s root point, Pr , and the tube’s base points are first projected onto a plane. A curve is then registered by casting a ray from the center, Pc , of the tube’s base towards Pr. The tube’s parametric ‘u’ at the ray-tube intersection point, Pi, and the distance ratio
The ImportDrawover tool exports the Animator’s drawovers from PREMO (DreamWorks’ Animation Software) or from the movie player and imports them (or any other images) into 3-D packages that the CFX artist works with. The artist can view the drawovers in the 3-D viewport and match the shot work to the art direction. This visual communication language lets visual art accurately drive the shapes, significantly reducing iterations between departments and removing guesswork. The drawover colors can be modified for optimal viewing. The tool uses custom image planes for Z-depth and transparency adjustments. Letterbox adjustment is also provided for images that don’t match the aspect ratio.