ANIMAL’S ANIMATION TOOLS
A LOOK AT THREE TOOLS DEVELOPED AT ANIMAL LOGIC THAT SOLVED SOME UNIQUE CHALLENGES FOR SPECIFIC ANIMATED PROJECTS
rigging and animation, and for simulation of things like feathers, fur and cloth,” details Heckenberg. “Traditionally that’s been an area where the animation industry has actually been a very active driver of technology and research directions. Rendering is another area where, as an industry, we’ve broken a lot of ground over many years and we continue to do so.”
‘RENDERING EVERYWHERE’
One of the most intense and visible R&D projects Animal Logic has tackled in recent years is the development of its proprietary path-trace renderer called Glimpse. The renderer started life on The LEGO Movie, and came about because of the need to craft the rigid plastic bricks for that film.
“It sounds like an easy problem, right?” relates Heckenberg. “You know, when you do computer graphics badly, everything looks like plastic. Problem solved for LEGO! But, in our case, we had made a decision early on with the project to actually take the brick metaphor all the way down through our models and tools. So rather than building complete objects that might look like assembled LEGO, we were
“WE WORKED WITH BRICKS WITH STUDS FOR ALL OF OUR MODELS”
Daniel Heckenberg, R&D supervisor – Graphics
working with bricks with studs for all of our models. This approach, combined with our very realistic style and aesthetic for the film, was a very significant challenge for the rendering technology we were using at the time.”
This specialised ‘problem’ gave Animal Logic the opportunity to develop its own rendering technology, taking advantage of the latest research at the time (2012) that had been done in physically plausible rendering, and looking to support aspects such as “instancing and the efficiency of representation of extremely large scenes from a structural point of view,” explains Heckenberg.
Since The LEGO Movie, Glimpse has been transformed into a fully functional renderer and is now used on all Animal Logic projects. It’s also implemented into the entire studio’s pipeline. “We wanted Glimpse to scale so that it’s not just about rendering the final lighting pass,” notes Grant. “We’ve taken great advantage of the fact that our animation renders are done with the same renderer that we’re using for the final lighting. If we have even temp lighting, we get a much richer result, hopefully catching any necessary changes earlier in the process.”
PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
Organising hundreds of people to build thousands of shots and assets obviously requires a lot of tools. While not as popular as the pixelsand-polygons, systems for digital asset management, automation and resource management are just as critical to producing films efficiently and on time.
So, Animal Logic has also invested significantly in resources to develop custom production systems. Digital asset management is heavily automated and manages tens of millions of models, textures, rigs and renders across each film
and between their studios in Vancouver and Sydney.
Animal Logic also developed proprietary render farm systems, providing job scheduling algorithms designed to take advantage of on-premise – and more recently, cloud-based – computing resources. The schedulers tie deeply into the pipeline, handling heavy compute for rendering, while orchestrating many types of automated processes. The overarching goal is to keep artists focused on what they do best: creating amazing content.
CONTINUAL DEVELOPMENT
Newly available technologies and techniques mean Animal Logic has always had to refine its own pipeline and adoption of tools. The studio has been considering some of the major developments in realtime tools and machine learning or A.I., and how to leverage more from operating in the cloud in terms of pipelines and infrastructure.
There are also changes sweeping the industry relating to open-source software, such as Pixar’s USD and projects overseen by the Academy Software Foundation. Animal Logic is a regular contributor to these efforts, which Grant suggests, “helps us get a seat at the table. Our team really talks to the USD team, and we
actually have a bit of sway and a bit of influence because they know we care about this product and want to support it just as much as they do.”
Animal Logic was an early adopter of USD technology and the studio’s first major open-source project – AL_USDMAYA – was a ‘dynamic’ USD/MAYA translator/ bridge. The project was tested on Peter Rabbit and Peter Rabbit
2 across assets, animation and lighting. It has now been handed over to Autodesk and is an ongoing open-source project which Animal Logic continues to contribute to. Autodesk is looking to integrate the project as part of a larger USD workflow solution inside Maya.
Most recently, Animal Logic rebuilt its entire production pipeline around USD. This includes the lighting workflow on Peter Rabbit 2, which was based on an application known as ‘Filament’ to provide an artist-friendly integration of Maya, USD, Glimpse and a number of other technologies.
Above (left): The shapeshifting Queen Watevra Wa’nabi from
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
The practical application of this constant change and adoption of open-source tools is evident in the new animation pipeline introduced at Animal Logic. A wellestablished pipeline had existed since Happy Feet (2006), and it was largely based on Softimage XSI. When that tool was discontinued, Animal Logic began building something new. “At the time we considered building our own scene description to service our next-gen animation pipeline,” explains head of production technology Aidan Sarsfield. “But through a stroke of good luck, Pixar open-sourced USD at just the right time!”
“The resulting animation workflow/pipeline would be
“THROUGH A STROKE OF LUCK, PIXAR OPENSOURCED USD AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME!” Aidan Sarsfield, head of production technology
familiar to most,” he continues. “The tools construct the animator’s scene. When the animator is complete, they deliver their motion files, and finally automation takes over the process of caching geometry and running review renders. The major difference is the management of scene complexity using USD.”
GETTING INTO THE FIELD
Ultimately, the Animal Logic crew working in technology and R&D hail from a wide variety of backgrounds. For example, technical director Jessica D’ali had studied information technology and worked in software development before completing a
master’s degree at the UTS Animal Logic Academy in Sydney, then scored a performance TD role at Animal Logic. D’ali’s day-to-day role involves supporting, designing and implementing tools for artists in the edit, tracking, layout, rotomation, and animation departments.
“Software problems will occur during production, sometimes preventing artists from working,” outlines D’ali. “The support role requires me to solve these problems and ensure the artists can continue working without any disruption to their usual processes. As someone who enjoys problem-solving, I love searching for these solutions, and the close dynamic of the teams at Animal Logic means that some of these problems are a team effort and we are able to work together to quickly find creative solutions.”
“The second style of work that I am required to do involves the development of new animation and pipeline tools,” D’ali continues. “Every project is different and at the start of a new project, new tools, due to creative direction decisions or process improvements, will need to be written. A great part of working at a company with such diverse and talented artists is that people are always suggesting tools and software ideas for the TD team to consider and implement.”
For anyone looking to score a TD job at an animation or visual effects studio, D’ali suggests first experimenting with 3D animation software and learning Python. “A majority of animation tools, and all the tools I work on as an animation TD, are coded in Python. Practising writing Python scripts is a great way to learn this style of work. Pixar’s USD, which is used through Animal Logic’s pipeline, is also a great framework to investigate and learn.” Discover more of Animal Logic’s FYI work at animallogic.com
“WRITING PYTHON SCRIPTS IS A GREAT WAY TO LEARN THIS STYLE OF WORK” Jessica D’ali, technical director