Summer research, movies, 6-7 January, 2017

Wreck it Ralph
2012, director Rich Moore, Disney

Amazing sequence inside the combat video game with a million bugs swirling around.

The Crown
2016, Netflix

Great sequence putting angry elephants together with the actors.

Shrek Forever After
2010, director Mike Mitchell, Dreamworks

Not the best of the Shrek movies, but I did love the costume design work for Rumplestilskin

Hotel Transylvania
2012, director Genndy Tartovsky of Powerpuff Girls with Craig McCracken
I loved the 2000s Powerpuff Girls, so I'm very fond of Genndy Tartovsky.

JSG Boggs is Dead, 30 January, 2017

NYTimes article

He's one of my favourite artists- his ideas about money, it's value, and why we trade it (why is it worth anything at all?) were so interesting.  RIP

Summer Research, 13 January, 2017

Costume design award for costume design in an animated film, Kubo and the Two Strings

What is a Hybrid series?
Imaginary Mary

http://www.hybridmedicalanimation.com/
xray body in motion animation

Summer Research, movie and game reviews, 1 January, 2017

Rogue One
Lots of CGI in this movie, of course,and because it's a prequel filmed 40 years after the original Star Wars, there are characters whose actors have aged or died.  To bring the story full-circle, they've used two techniques: CGI face-swap and recasting.

Peter Cushing CGI explained

Actor Guy Henry was hired to be the on set Moff Tarkin and imitate his voice.  He's a good match for Peter Cushing (who died in 1994).  But then ILM replaced his face with a CGI "mask".

Which doesn't blink or have dilating pupils, doesn't emote,  doesn't seem to do any physical acting at all, looks like plastic... I could go on because I hated the result.  It's like they just wanted a moving mannequin to drape the CGI face on.  If the character was that necessary to the plot, surely a PERFORMANCE was also necessary.  Peter Cushing's acting in the first movie made the world more real because a thinking person was behind all the space battles and he kept Darth Vader grounded,  

Mon Mothma's original actor, Caroline Blakiston, was recast with a look alike actress Genevieve O'Reilley in Rogue One, and it looks great.  She could have been aged up, but it's a small gripe.   I get that it's the same character and there's a performance.  They also replaced two of the Rebel pilots but this time the CGI face swap worked- I could have sworn they just recycled old footage.  The fast-paced editing definitely helped because there was no chance to enter the Uncanny Valley (that point where fake humans look super creepy).

A GREAT CGI performance was created by filming Alan Tudyk in a mocap suit as he played droid K2SO on set.  The link to the featurette talks about how the animators pulled performance bits out of the footage and gave the droid blinks and eye shifts that showed the thought process behind his words.  It created a fantastic character and I never thought he was CGI; totally fooled me.

Alan Tudyk as K2SO
creature and digital effects collaboration

Other stuff I've watched since school ended:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Great character development with the CGI critters like the Niffler, and fabulous magic made real with Newt Scamander's suitcase.
Moana

"Shiny" crab and Maui's tiny tattoo self

Lego Dimensions games
Here's somebody's dream come true:  a video game that mixes worlds kids, parents AND grandparents are interested in.  All the fantasy worlds (or, as many as they could get the rights to) you can imagine mixing characters, set pieces, and scenarios.

The Arrival

Aliens that really look and communicate in non-human ways
Fantastic Mr. Fox

The choice to use actors speaking normally makes this a film for adults.

Summer research, Lili game play, 21 December, 2016

game teaser
game trailer

I like the framing of these shots- you're far enough back that you can see what's happening when the character is in action, then you go up close for thinking challenges.

summer research, Marvelous Designer, 7 December, 2016

artist testimony: she used Marvelous Designer to make custom mocap suits for dogs and horses.  doing the pattern in MD meant fewer fittings on the horse.

Could you describe challenges in which Marvelous Designer was of use to you and go into detail regarding how Marvelous Designer helped overcome them?
The most challenging thing for me was sewing the MoCap suit for a horse. I created the pattern in Marvelous Designer, and used it to sew the suit itself. After measuring the horse, we created an avatar that I used to make the suit, and by importing the data of the moving horse (Maya cache) we could also simulate the suit to see how it fits. It was very helpful that we could set the material quality of the suit, and during the tests, we could see where we need extra fabric, and where we should make it more formfitting. There were several errors that came to surface this way before the actual sewing took place, and thus the horse required less fitting sessions.

Proposed workflow:  

sculpt body of actor in Maya.  How do I get accurate measurements into Maya so the model is the same proportions as the actor portraying the character?

import model of actor into Marvelous Designer.  Is it possible to make shapes with foam over the model in MD? And then drape fabric?  Or must I bring in a model of Jellybean (character body) and then drape fabric over that?

sculpt head in Maya, slightly smaller to account for fabric, for 3D printing

Test MD pattern in paper at 1/4 scale

Adjust pattern in MD

Test MD pattern #2 in 1/4 scale (repeat until pattern is right)

Test MD pattern in cardboard at full scale

3D print skull of head and print pattern to make in foam

Cut foam

cut fabric

sew/glue/assemble

Write up each stage:  how much fiddling did the pattern require at each step?  What's the scale difference between foam and fabrics? 

summer research, storytelling, 2 December, 2016

Will Schoder's universal story breakdown video

Dan Harmon, showrunner for "Community" and co-creator? of "Rick and Morty" expanded on Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and Will Schoder made this animated guide  to illustrate the mono-myth format of storytelling.

Dan Harmon's universal story breakdown webpage
Dan Harmon expands on the theory of storytelling in his post Story Structure 103 by saying

1. When you
2. have a need,
3. you go somewhere,
4. search for it,
5. find it,
6. take it,
7. then return
8. and change things.

5-minute plots lesson 106.  Lesson 105 tells you how to set up a story for TV so it goes on forever and ever and ever.  Depressing, now that I see it, but instructive, nevertheless.