"Avatar" Secrets Revealed at SIGGRAPH 2010
(Chicago, IL) - SIGGRAPH 2010 features multiple Production
Sessions that will reveal the secrets of "Avatar", including
stereoscopic filmmaking and visual effects. Two visual effects
companies that contributed to the making of "Avatar", New
Zealand-based Weta Digital and U.S.-based Industrial Light & Magic,
will take attendees behind the scenes and give valuable insight
into the work that won three Academy Awards® for Best
Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction.
"James Cameron's epic vision of 'Avatar' changed the landscape
for filmmaking and production," said Terrence Masson, SIGGRAPH 2010
Conference Chair from Northeastern University. "A movie of this
caliber not only has moved our industry forward light years, but it
also has the potential to teach us techniques and solutions that we
never would have considered."
SIGGRAPH Production Sessions are high-level discussions that
showcase how computer graphics and interactive techniques are
actually designed and implemented. Attendees of all experience
levels will benefit.
Preview video of the 2010 Computer Animation Festival
Here are just a few highlights of this year's
Production Sessions:
Making "Avatar" Joe Letteri and
Stephen Rosenbaum, Weta Digital; Richard Baneham,
Lightstorm
"Avatar" is the first predominately digitally created
film, shot and directed as a live action film. Key to the
director's vision was having photorealistic, believable digital
characters and environments fit seamlessly with live action. To
accomplish this, Weta Digital, led by Joe Letteri, developed
innovations that enabled the director and actors work as if they
were in a conventional live-action movie, even when filming
sequences that were entirely computer-generated. For the audience
to connect with the blue- skinned ten-foot-tall "Na'vi",
they had to see the actor's soul shine through the character's
eyes. This required increased realism in character animation,
especially the facial animation. The emotional performances of the
characters in "Avatar" are an achievement that have taken
digital characters to a new level of believability and have at the
same time, enhanced story telling.
Character and Environment Lighting Challenges on
"Avatar" Kevin Smith, Weta
Digital
This session summarizes some of the problems encountered during the
"Avatar" production process and their solutions. The
focus is on maintaining pipeline flexibility and enabling users to
concentrate on the art of lighting instead of managing
technology.
Volume Rendering for "Avatar"
Antoine Bouthors and Mark Davies, Weta Digital
How Weta Digital achieved efficient, realistic stereo rendering of
volumetric elements and their integration with the compositing
engine.
Compositing "Avatar"
Peter Hillman, Erik Winquist, and Matthew Welford, Weta
Digital
This presentation outlines some of the adaptations that Weta
Digital made to its compositing pipeline to deliver
"Avatar": simplifying stereo compositing and stereo-image
handling, and avoiding the need to render holdout masks to
composite render layers.
A
Physically Based Approach to Virtual Character
Deformations
Simon Clutterbuck and James Jacobs, Weta Digital
James Cameron's "Avatar" required the principal digital
characters to be photo-realistic, full-screen, and almost fully
naked in hundreds of shots. To accomplish this task, Weta Digital
developed a robust character-simulation toolset that delivered the
required level of realism.
Rendering "Avatar": Spherical Harmonics in
Production Nick McKenzie, Martin Hill, and Jon
Allitt, Weta Digital
This session covers the application of spherical harmonics in a
production rendering environment for accelerated final-frame
rendering of complex scenes and materials.
PantaRay: Directional Occlusion for Fast Cinematic Lighting
of Massive Scenes
Jacopo Pantaleoni and Timo Aila, NVIDIA Research; David Luebke,
NVIDIA Corporation; Luca Fascione, Martin Hill, Weta
Digital
NVIDIA Research and Weta Digital present the results of a joint
research collaboration, and describe the architecture of a novel
ray tracing system for precomputing the sparse directional
occlusion caches used as a primary lighting technology during the
making of "Avatar".
"Avatar": Bending Rigid Bodies
Brice Criswell, Michael Lentine, and Steve Sauers, Industrial
Light & Magic
This session describes the tools recently developed at Industrial
Light & Magic for automatically modeling surface deformations
produced during bending and denting of rigid materials.
"Avatar": Modeling a Jungle, From Template to
Film
Shawn Dunn and Marco Revelant, Weta Digital
The vast and epic environments in "Avatar" presented
unique technical hurdles. Weta Digital developed tools and
procedures to create realistic, high-density 3D environments. This
presentation explores the process and tools used in modeling and
layout of these very complex environments.
Digital Water for "Avatar"
Allen Hemberger, Christoph Sprenger, Diego Trazzi, and
Sebastian Marino, Weta Digital Detailed description of the
full-CG stereographic water pipeline for "Avatar", from
innovative fluid simulation through a custom-designed
levelset-based post-processing stage to final renders using a
modular shading strategy.
An
Accurate Method for Acquiring High-Resolution Skin-Displacement
Maps
Gino Acevedo and Eugene D'Eon, Weta Digital
An efficient and precise method for acquiring skin-displacement
maps is an essential component for creating an accurate appearance
model for faces, hands, and skin in general.
To view all
the Production Sessions that will be presented at SIGGRAPH 2010,
visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2010/for_attendees/computer_animation_festival/production_sessions
About SIGGRAPH 2010 SIGGRAPH 2010 will
bring approximately 25,000 computer graphics and interactive
technology professionals from six continents to Los Angeles,
California, USA for the industry's most respected technical and
creative programs focusing on research, science, art, animation,
music, gaming, interactivity, education, and the web from Sunday,
25 July through Thursday, 29 July 2010 at the Los Angeles
Convention Center. SIGGRAPH 2010 includes a three-day exhibition of
products and services from the computer graphics and interactive
marketplace from 27-29 July 2010. More than 200 international
exhibiting companies are expected. More details are available at
www.siggraph.org/s2010
About ACM SIGGRAPH
The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive
Techniques www.siggraph.org, is an interdisciplinary community
interested in research, technology, and applications in computer
graphics and interactive techniques. Members include researchers,
developers and users from the technical, academic, business, and
art communities. SIGGRAPH provides information to the computer
graphics community through its annual conference, publications and
the SIGGRAPH Video Review.
About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the
world's largest educational and scientific computing society,
uniting educators, researchers and professionals to inspire
dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. ACM
strengthens the computing profession's collective voice through
strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and
recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional
growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long
learning, career development, and professional networking.
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