Companies Collaborate to Bring Innovative Technology for Computer Generated Animation and Visual Effects to Digital Entertainment Creation Artists
SAN RAFAEL, Calif., August 9, 2011 — At
SIGGRAPH 2011, Autodesk,
Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) and Walt Disney Pictures announced an
agreement to bring an innovative animation and visual effects
technology to the Digital Entertainment Creation community. Autodesk
obtained a license with a five-year exclusivity period for the XGen
Arbitrary Primitive Generator technology (XGen), used most recently
by Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) in the hit animated film
“Tangled.â€
XGen technology was first presented by WDAS in a research paper at
SIGGRAPH in 2003 for the creation of computer-generated fur,
feathers, and foliage. Since that time, XGen has evolved and been
refined on seven features, three shorts and one TV show. It has
been used to create the fur, hair, feathers, trees, leaves and
rocks in “Bolt,†the trees and bushes in
“UP,†the dust bunnies, debris, trees, bushes, clover
and flowers in “Toy Story 3,†and the grass and trees
in “Cars 2.†In “Tangled,†WDAS used XGen
to bring the lavish 3D animated world to life: from
Rapunzel’s perfectly groomed golden locks to the film’s
lush, vegetation-filled landscapes, including bushes, flowers,
vines, grass, weeds, moss, thistle, ground mulch, fallen leaves,
sticks, rocks, butterfly fur, airborne dust, leaves and trees, plus
props such as roof tiles, arrow fletchings, a broom and paint
brushes.
XGen is a comprehensive system for generating arbitrary primitives
on a surface. The system advances the state-of-the-art in the
industry in several ways with its versatility, durability and
impact. XGen allows techno-artistic access to interpolation in an
intuitive manner for artists, empowering them with a powerful and
flexible framework for primitive generation, which is highly art
directable. The genesis of XGen was a collaboration between the
WDAS production and software teams to provide its artists with
intuitive, creative tools for 3D animation — such as
“grooming†tools for fur and hair — so that they can
develop the look and feel of their characters and environments more
quickly and easily. Senior Development Software Engineer at WDAS
Tom Thompson was an initial creator and remains the chief architect
of the software. Walt Disney Pictures’ agreement with
Autodesk will enable Autodesk to make this technology available to
artists to create digital entertainment.
“Twenty years ago, visual effects artists creating computer
graphics were mostly mathematicians and scientists using highly
technical and complex software tools that required significant
amounts of custom programming,†explained Chief Technology
Officer Andy Hendrickson, Walt Disney Animation Studios.
“Back then, off-the-shelf software could not create the
required details of nuance and emotion. Today, we were able to
create XGen as an effective artistic tool because Autodesk provides
studios like ours with comprehensive tools and a flexible,
extensible platform to develop on. The Autodesk customizable
toolset helps visual effects artists do their best work.â€
"A key challenge in the visual effects industry continues to
be the need to constantly evolve creatively while somehow
controlling rapidly escalating production costs," said
Marc
Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media &
Entertainment. “To help customers better address this
challenge, Autodesk has been working with industry leaders like
Walt Disney Animation Studios to help them innovate faster and to
make these new technologies more broadly accessible. Digital
Entertainment Creation users are sure to benefit from developments
designed by industry visionaries and proven in
production.â€
Walt Disney Animation Studios Director of Studio Technology Dan
Candela said, “A primary focus for my team is to ensure that
the production pipeline is streamlined in order to efficiently
produce the best possible CG animation. With Autodesk’s Maya
as a core piece of our toolset, we've developed over 100 plug-ins
and extensions for the platform to enable our artists to create a
movie of the quality of 'Tangled' within necessary time and
budgetary limits. Sharing our technology with the VFX and CG
animation community raises the creative bar for the entire
industry.â€
Walt Disney Animation Studios has contributed many innovations to
the entertainment industry, including the open source
projects: SeExpr, Reposado, munki, and Partio. Over the past
two years, Autodesk has integrated two other WDAS technologies into
its software, the Maya Camera Sequencer and Ptex. The animation
studio's Camera Sequencer was introduced in Autodesk Maya
2011 3D animation software and provides powerful multicamera
editorial capabilities for previsualization and virtual
moviemaking. WDAS' Ptex texture mapping system was incorporated
into Maya 2012 and Autodesk Mudbox 2012 digital sculpting and
texture painting software. With the single-step interoperability
between Maya and Mudbox in the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites, Ptex enables
artists to create highly detailed, textured, models more quickly
and efficiently.
The Software team at Walt Disney Animation Studios has continued
its contributions to the animation and visual effects community by
making technology available as open source software for use across
the entertainment industry. The studio has a history of
technological innovation and advances the use of open source
software. Concurrently, Autodesk continues to work with the
industry to help in the broader adoption of open source
initiatives, such as Ptex, Alembic and OpenEXR, as a means of
increasing production efficiency through greater
standardization.
About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is a leader in
3D
design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers
across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and
media and entertainment industries -- including the last 16 Academy
Award winners for Best Visual Effects -- use Autodesk software to
design, visualize and simulate their ideas. Since its introduction
of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk continues to develop the
broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software for global markets.
For additional information about Autodesk, visit http://www.autodesk.com
About Walt Disney Animation Studios
Located in
Burbank, California, Walt Disney Animation Studios brings
imagination to life through traditional and computer animated
films. WDAS is filled with diverse talent from all around the globe
whose passion is to create beautiful and timeless films through the
art of storytelling, the magic of animation and the science of
cutting-edge technology. For additional information about WDAS and
The Walt Disney Company, visit http://corporate.disney.go.com
Autodesk, AutoCAD, Maya and Mudbox are registered trademarks or
trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or
affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Academy Award is a
registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences. All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong
to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter
product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at
any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical
or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2011
Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
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