..| .. |
June 16-30, 2001 MARVELS |
|
|
Master
File
CHANNELS Politics
|
MOVIE ANIMATION The Final Frontier Computer-generated imaging has entered a new phase where it's difficult to differentiate between the actual and the digitally animated characters. By Amit Ranjan Rai A new science-fiction movie 'Final Fantasy' is out for release in July. The movie is based on a popular gaming title by the same name that game lovers must be familiar with. The plot is quite similar to that of some recent sci-fi movies. Aki Ross, the heroine-brunette, lithe, and headstrong-leads a team of commandos on a mission to rescue the planet Earth. A saga of courage, trust and treachery, wrapped around a war with invading aliens. What's unusual is that Aki and the entire cast of the movie are digitally animated characters. And these animated characters look so close to flesh-and-blood humans that it would be difficult for the audience to distinguish between the two. Those who've seen the movie footage call it "close to and at times better than the real thing". For the computer-generated (CG) imaging industry it is slated to open a new chapter-one of photo-realistic animation. Making of the Movie The movie is a venture of the Tokyo-based gaming giant Square Co. Ltd, whose nine Final Fantasy game titles have sold more than 30 million copies. The idea of doing a movie based on these titles came from Hironobu Sakaguchi, the executive vice-president of the Square Co. The biggest hurdle for Square to create Final Fantasy was that the tools needed to create photo-realistic animations on such a large scale simply did not exist. To create these tools, Square hired some 200 software engineers and animators in the computer graphics and feature film production industries from around the globe and brought them to its studio in Hawaii. According to estimates, some $70 million went into the making of the movie. Much of this money was used in creating new animation technology that the company could also use in future projects-both gaming and movie production. Invisible Actors One of the first stages in animating Final Fantasy was to capture the motion of the various characters for every scene. Remington Scott, a motion capture specialist, and his team used 16 cameras in the backdrop of an all-black stage and choreographed the scenes capturing movements of each characters. Unlike the real actors in feature movie, the characters here were little white balls, about one inch in diameter, which dotted their clothing. Made of reflective material, these balls shined brightly under the bright lights around the stage, and the cameras traced their every move. The movements of the balls were downloaded into a computer, which translated the data into movements in a virtual 3-D space. Using a computer, Scott's team connected the dots and created stick figures. This data of all the movements was sent to animators who using their sophisticated in-house software brought the characters to virtual life and combined them with voice recordings. Making each face is laborious and requires detailed work. With books of human faces on their desks, the designers figured out faces that were sculpted into virtual three-dimensional models. As the first step towards creating the faces and bodies, graphic designers created a sketched version of the characters and superimposed a three-dimensional 'wireframe' over the drawing. The wireframe in essence became the character's skeleton and allowed the animators to life-like movement and form. Rendering Skin These frames were then given a skin. Here the greatest challenge for the artists was the reproduction of the human skin texture. Unlike most CG models, which are depicted with mannequin-like smooth skin, real skin is varied, consisting of imperfections, rough textures and uneven layers. To create such realistic skin a layer of CG human facial skin was peeled off and set on a flat surface tool where the artist manually work on them. A tool called 'secular map' was used to adjust the lighting on the skin to create a realistic and lively texture of the skin. Another tool, 'blur map', was used to depict the unevenness of the skin with a three-dimensional look. Through the various maps and manual work on them, the artist almost produced a 'living skin' with freckles, detailed colour contrasts and shading. These maps were then pasted on to a CG 3-D model for the artist to adjust and add appropriate lighting. Muscle Motion While one department worked on the skin, another focused on the body movements and the meticulous deformations that manifest as muscles extend, flex, supinate and pronate. For that the human muscle structure was rendered with different colours. After creating a rough model of the body, the artists then deform this model by studying the multi-colour muscle structure. This allowed the artist to implement various muscle movements without looking awkward. As the final step, a layer of textured skin was placed on the deformed model. The fusion of natural deformation and realistic skin texture is what created the "flesh" of a photo-real human character. One of the many challenging aspects of producing a photo-realistic human character was depicting the realism of the hair and follicles. For this the artists used a modelling technique in which they attached one individual hair at a time to fill the scalp. The natural wind-blown effect of the hair was created through a painstaking combination of manual and an intensive simulation process. Clothing simulation was achieved through combining the body deformation of the characters and manipulating the fabric of the clothing to drape naturally over the figures. An aspect of cloth simulation was the relaxation between the body and clothes. Complex calculations were formulated to ensure that the body does not appear through the clothing. As for how well the movie will bridge the gap between fantasy and reality will only become apparent when it hits the large screen. Animation experts in Hollywood say that achieving perfection that duplicates reality in its totality still remains a tough job for animators. "It's graphic artist's dream to recreate the real world to perfection," said an expert. Final Fantasy, the first of its kind endeavour, they say, is just the beginning towards that perfection. |
|
Issue Contents Write to us Subscriptions Syndication INDIA
TODAY | BUSINESS
TODAY | INDIA TODAY PLUS © Living Media India Ltd |
 |
 |
