Continue reading »]]> Superheroes are cool. But now they are cooler than ever.

That’s since comic-book marvel Stan Lee—creator of such mythological heroes as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and more—is introducing mint characters belonging to a joining (and to a National Hockey League). But instead of appropriation their superhuman characteristics from spiders, DNA experiments, vast rays, technological innovation, or a Norse god, these new legends get their powers from a NHL authorization any was recognised to represent. Their mission: to watch over their sold teams, fans, and stadiums. In other words, to be guardians of a ice.

The judgment was a brainchild of Guardian Media Entertainment (GME). A corner try between a NHL and Stan Lee’s SLG Entertainment, GME launched this singular NHL-themed superhero franchise, famous as The Guardian Project.

So, what exactly is The Guardian Project? It might be easier to explain what it isn’t. It’s not a game. Nor is it a comic-book series. And, it’s not a movie. At least, not during this moment. And it unequivocally is not a deputy for a organisation mascots. Rather, it’s some-more of an idea. At slightest that’s what it was until a organisation during motion-capture trickery Vicon House of Moves (HOM) got involved. Working with GME, they helped pierce a judgment to computer-generated life.

Legends of a Ice

The Guardians contain a collection of 30 superheroes. The backstory centers on Mike Mason, a child who has a ability to renovate his hypothetical friends into 30 superheroes, organically themed after any NHL team. With Mason during a helm, a Guardians quarrel dim army to keep their sold cities and arenas safe.

The other thought of these superheroes is to excite a stream bottom of NHL fans and to attract a new era of youngsters and tweens to a universe of hockey by rolling out successive stories involving a Guardian characters. To this end, GME’s wish was that a characters spin informed faces in a universe of veteran hockey by appearing in broadcasts and charcterised sequences during home arenas via a season. In further to carrying a heroes seem on JumboTrons during home games, GME is eyeing other outlets for a characters, including movies, comic books, television, and Web-based games. Global media domination, in other words.

The characters assume a elements and traits of their sold hockey authorization (for instance, a Calgary Flames’ Guardian has a energy to control fire; a Boston Bruins’ Guardian fights immorality with his sonic roar). However, a story lines in “The Guardian Project”—whatever a medium—are not about hockey. They’re all about superhero action.

It was adult to HOM—a motion-capture and animation studio with endless knowledge in a film, games, and radio markets—to make that transformation happen. “We got concerned early on, when Guardian Media Entertainment had this skill and branding idea, yet it was usually an thought during a time,” says Brian Rausch, clamp boss of prolongation during HOM.

As Rausch explains, many of a time HOM’s clients are unequivocally specific about what they wish from a facility—25 mins of cinematic animation for a diversion or 35 mins of mocap for a film, for instance. “Usually they say, ‘Here’s a script, a storyboards, let’s run off and fire it, and we do a animation,’” he notes. For this project, though, GME supposing impression comic-book-style sketches and lax direction: They had a judgment for a formula and wanted to extend it, and a possibilities were far-reaching open.

“Vicon House of Moves was a loyal partner from a get-go, operative with us on a 3D build-out of a characters, conceptualizing a characters’ signature moves, building story concepts, formulating storyboards, doing a live-action shoot, completing suit constraint along with handling all a animation, voice-overs, and final revise and delivery,” says Adam Baratta, arch artistic officer of GME. “Bringing 30 opposite characters to life—each of that is tied to a rarely worshiped NHL team—is no tiny task.”

Open Ice

The initial diversion devise was for HOM to strength out a impression sketches and spin them into charcterised CG models. “They said, ‘We wish shorts. We wish Web games. We wish films. We wish all this stuff,’ ” says Rausch of GME’s initial direction. “They had a judgment that indispensable to be branded. We were to give it an identity.”

The initial doing would be for interstitials that played during a NHL arenas; where they would be shown (JumboTrons, along a walls surrounding a ice, and so forth) would be tranquil by a internal locus operators. “Basically, they had screens to fill with content,” Rausch says. “So that set us down a trail that led to doing [the content] in a building-block style, that would capacitate us to be agile.”

As Rausch explains, a organisation would emanate brief animations—walk cycles, idle motions, punch animations, moody animations. So, for example, if an user wants to uncover a team’s Guardian safeguarding a thought after a save, he or she can uncover a brief animation of a impression slapping a puck away. Those animations afterwards can be looped and strung together simply by a user to beget longer sequences as needed.

Creating animations for a extended spectrum of uses was usually one plea for HOM. Another: building engaging and equally constrained Guardians—30 in all—that would reason adult on shade and have their possess fiction, starting with a tech breakdowns and surpassing by 3D design, modeling, and animation, to story. “They all have opposite styles that compulsory opposite approaches [to a animation],” says Rausch. “There are some tellurian characters that reason adult good with true mocap and a tiny tuning gloss over top. For others with back-bending knees, though, we mocapped a top half of their bodies and keyframed a revoke partial to get that [unique] movement.” Then there are others, like a Maple Leaf Guardian—which has these tree-trunk legs with roots that have to be pulled and carried before he moves—that tumble into a difficulty all their own.

The third plea that HOM faced dealt with a resolution, as any locus has a opposite fortitude requirement, as do a several screens to that a user would be porting a imagery. “So going down a unchanging describe siren was not an choice for us,” says Rausch. “If we had to cgange resources and re-render resources by a normal form of prerender pipeline, a compulsory time and bill would have left by a roof.” Alternatively, a organisation motionless to use Epic Games’ Unreal diversion engine for rendering—a large step in a unequivocally surprising instruction for HOM, Rausch admits.

Under standard resources and as they have finished for years, a organisation would have selected a non-real-time renderer. And while a organisation did not use a real-time capability of Unreal due to a pressure of a scenes, a engine was means to hoop a impression passes unequivocally quickly. “We didn’t need it to hoop 30 or 60 frames per second, like many people who use it do. We usually indispensable it to be faster than other pre-render engines,” says Rausch. “Because it was so fast, we could describe during whatever fortitude we wanted, and afterwards adjust a cameras and re-render a pass with a opposite distance plate.”

Freezing a Puck

With this “agile” prolongation tube in place, HOM began a breakaway, creation rapid swell on a project. Then, a organisation strike soothing ice. “GME said, ‘Everything you’re operative on, we need we to pull off. We now need a two-minute square for a All-Star Game in January,’” recalls Rausch.

That two-minute piece—a entrance out of sorts for a Guardians—turned into 3.5 mins of animation in a brief that enclosed all 30 characters as good as a villain. “We had to pattern it, comp it, spur it, light it, supplement effects, and so on,” says Rausch. “It was an assertive production.”

Rausch credits a group’s surpassing preference to incorporate a nonlinear building-block proceed with HOM’s ability to change directions so quickly. “When a event [for a All-Star Game] presented itself to a client, we were means to pierce brazen quick and aggressively,” he says. “[The All-Star Game project] was something a customer didn’t wish to pass up.”

During a NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina, a brief played in a stadium, on both a Versus and CBC Networks, and online. The film introduced a new

superheroes as they assimilated army to conflict knave Deven Dark as he attempted to take over a RBC Center—that is, until a Carolina Hurricane saves a day in an ultimate energy play.

In sequence to prepared a short, HOM had to temporarily stop a strange work mid-ice. Assets for usually dual Guardians—the Philadelphia Flyer and a LA King—were in use during that point, so HOM drafted partners to assistance emanate a remaining resources that would be needed. Subsequently, many of a All-Star display used 3D impression models crafted by Massive Black.

Men in Motion

The CG resources were built regulating Autodesk’s Maya and Pixologic’s ZBrush, while Auto­desk’s MotionBuilder was used to retarget a motion. The suit constraint for a All-Star display was finished over a nine-day period, achieved regulating 80 Vicon T160 cameras set adult within a 70×40-foot constraint volume. In all, it took a organisation a tiny over dual and a half months to finish a work for a short, while work on a initial rollout continued following a delay.

In all, HOM will have finished 250 opposite deliverables for The Guardian Project. The initial mocap sessions entailed capturing a characters’ energy moves formed on their sold strengths. The successive animations, that are some-more watchful moves, were for 30-second one-offs indispensable to deliver any impression into a possess city—for instance, a Philadelphia Flyer as he glides around City Hall and zooms off to a Wells Fargo Center. This work honed in on a particular characters, such as perplexing wing movements, as these Guardians quarrel crime in their possess city.

“Our work developed from straight-forward, easy, one-off moves, to perplexing to tell a story with some-more formidable combinations of moves in a longer, open piece,” says HOM’s Peter Krygowski, who destined a project.

According to Krygowski, when a All-Star work was requested, he began to build a story around a particular energy moves he had already mocapped, “and that lonesome about 60 percent of what we needed,” he says. “The story line [of a heroes removing sucked into a building], though, demanded that we emanate some singular animations and mix things we had already shot. That’s not easy to do, since sobriety works opposite you. So if we didn’t have a mocap data, we used a bottom of a information and converted it into hand-keyed movement.” In some instances, a animation was 100 percent hand-keyed in Maya and afterwards fed into a Unreal Engine.

Some of a characters in a brief even have facial animation, that was finished regulating blendshapes. Work is still surpassing on this front; a organisation is also enlightening all a impression rigs to make them some-more strong and improved tuned for a Unreal pipeline. As Krygowski points out, a characters primarily were designed and fraudulent to exist by themselves in their possess worlds. But when that altered for a short, a rigs had to be temporarily tweaked so a Guardians could co-exist in a same screen.

The environments for The Guardian Project, meanwhile, were all combined in-house during HOM. For a All-Star Game, though, a organisation motionless to incorporate a live-action image due to a time limitation. The organisation got an support regulating Google Earth, that a artists used as anxiety for fixation lights and so onward into their scene, giving them accurate coordinates so they could compare a real-world lighting exactly. “It was a singularity of complicated record that finished it unequivocally easy and helped a Unreal guys. So when we brought a impression into [the Unreal environment], we had a good lighting setup that mimicked a genuine world,” says Krygowski.

The live-action sourroundings was protracted with CG abyss passes, fog, and other atmospherics. In further to a CG characters, a RBC Center was also combined in 3D, as it opens adult and transforms into a monster. In contrast, for a strange project, a organisation is building all a environments in CG, creation certain that any contains one iconic component from any locale, in further to a sold arena.

Alas, usually 48 hours before HOM shipped a All-Star project, a organisation had to supplement 6 shots, including a new finale to a film, when some of a outmost resources didn’t utterly mix with a rest of a show. “We had to pattern [those shots], comp them, spur them, light them, and supplement effects unequivocally quickly,” says Rausch. And this is where a diversion engine warranted MVP honors, enabling a organisation to work during an rare pace.

Just a Game

Faced with a daunting charge of displaying and animating 30 categorical characters in a brief duration of time for a initial project, it was Krygowski who came adult with a resolution of regulating a diversion engine to describe a assets. “We were in an bureau perplexing to figure out how to get all this finished in a timely fashion, and carrying come from a diversion world, we blurted out, ‘I wish we could use a diversion engine,’ and that’s how a thought was born,” he recalls.

The HOM organisation quick staid on Unreal since a growth pack was free, enabling a organisation to exam it. Once they were positive it would work, they contacted Epic, that concluded to work with HOM on chartering it for this nontraditional usage. “One of a tech gurus quick picked it up, and his unrestrained and ability to see down a highway in terms of what we could do with it positive us that we were on a right track,” recalls Krygowski.

Krygowski believes that The Guardian Project short, that was finished in about dual and a half months, would have simply taken 6 months if HOM hadn’t finished a choices it did, including regulating a diversion engine.

“Game engines give we a ability to light and describe scenes interactively in genuine time, even when you’re traffic with mixed characters,” says Krygowski. “With a diversion engine, we revoke a time that it takes to make essential artistic decisions since we have a ability to previsualize entirely rendered scenes.” As a result, a organisation chose to use Unreal not usually for a reduced describe times, yet also for a energetic options it offers for environmental controls and effects.

To accommodate this new approach, a organisation wrote several pieces of formula to beget tradition shaders and pierce practical cameras into and out of a Unreal Engine. This enabled a organisation to describe impression passes in roughly 32 seconds per frame, including a suit fuzz pass, so negating a need for a multi-CPU renderfarm. The whole devise was rendered on dual dual-processor, eight-core machines.

While a organisation has used diversion engines before, those instances were to exam animations in a client’s engine; this was a initial time a organisation used one to describe imagery for post-process output. While there were a few dis­advantages—for instance, modernized deformers can't be used on a impression rigs—it was a tiny cost to compensate deliberation a advantages gained.

And, according to Rausch, The Guardian Project will positively not be a final devise for that a real-time engine is used. “We have been articulate to dual other clients about regulating genuine time. It is a tube that has legs, for sure,” he says. In fact, HOM aims to tie a Unreal Engine to a Vicon motion-capture complement so clients will be means to see their available mocap performances integrated into diversion levels rendered in a diversion engine in genuine time.

“On a devise like this, we have to consider down a highway of potentially extrapolating characters and environments into diversion resources and a radio series, and issuing a CG artistic elements between mediums. By building scenes in a diversion engine out of a gate, a options are most broader—the need to down-res films from promote to diversion output, for example, will be mitigated, Rausch explains.

And while Krygowski remained assured in this new technique, he and a others were nonetheless tender with a results. “I’ve worked in a diversion universe for a prolonged time and was tender during a ability to ramp adult and get a devise to a shade in a time that we had,” he says. “Using a diversion engine quite for a promote focus is a new sputter in what diversion engines are being used for opposite a far-reaching extent of media.”

The Guardian Project charcterised brief kicked off one of hockey’s biggest events, creation a entrance during core ice. In further to a film, HOM designed a practical interactive knowledge for The Guardian Project counter during a NHL Fan Fair, hold during a Raleigh gathering core during a start of a all-star weekend. The knowledge authorised fans to enclose virtual-reality goggles and douse themselves into a CG sourroundings in that they get adult tighten and personal with some of a newly introduced super­heroes as they perform their signature moves.

Thus, a fable is born….

Karen Moltenbrey is a arch editor of Computer Graphics World.

Article source: http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2011/Volume-34-Issue-4-April-2011-/Ice-Capade.aspx

Continue reading »]]> The Google 3D Warehouse is a online repository of 3D models. Anyone can search for and download models, but to publish your own, you’ll need to sign in using your Google account.

Publishing your models to the Google 3D Warehouse is a great way to showcase your work. If you model 3D buildings and would like to share them with the world, you can do so through the “Best of the 3D Warehouse” layer in Google Earth. Only the very best models are selected for inclusion in this layer, but here are some helpful guidelines (pdf) that will improve your chances. Learn more about getting added to this layer.

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Continue reading »]]> SketchUp is a 3D modeling program designed for professional architects, civil engineers, filmmakers, game developers, and related professions. It also includes features to facilitate the placement of models in Google Earth. It was designed to be more intuitive, flexible, and easier to use than other 3D CAD programs.

It is marketed as an easy-to-use conceptual tool with a simple interface. A well known feature in the SketchUp World is the 3D Warehouse. Users can use their Google Accounts to upload models, and then browse the 3D Warehouse for many components and models.

Some of its key features and uses include:

• A “smart” drawing cursor (inference) system that allows users to draw 3D objects using a 2D screen and mouse.
• Simple massing study capability via “push-pull”.
• “Follow Me,” which creates 3D forms by extruding 2D surfaces along predetermined paths.
• Ability to animate camera and sun movements.
• Interoperability with Google Earth

SketchUp was developed by startup company @Last Software, Boulder, Colorado which was formed in 1999. SketchUp was first released in August 2000 as a general purpose 3D content creation tool. It won a Community Choice Award at its first tradeshow in 2000. It quickly found a market in architecture and building design industries and was revised to suit the needs of working professionals. The key to its early success was in its fast learning curve, allowing for a shorter learning period than other commercially available 3D tools.

As of SketchUp 5, features were added to allow the user to extrude and widen as well as the ability for a face to “follow” the cursor around an object.

On March 14, 2006, Google acquired @Last Software, attracted by their plugin for Google Earth.

On January 9, 2007, SketchUp 6 was released, featuring a handful of new tools as well as a beta version of Google SketchUp LayOut. LayOut includes a handful of 2D vector tools, as well as page layout tools making it easier for professionals to create presentations without jumping to a third-party presentation program.

On February 9, 2007, a maintenance update was released. It corrects a number of bugs, but brings no new features.

On April 27, 2006, Google announced Google SketchUp, a freely-downloadable version of SketchUp. The free version is not as capable as SketchUp Pro 6, but it includes integrated tools for uploading content to Google Earth and to the Google 3D Warehouse, a repository of models created in SketchUp.

The free version of Google Sketchup exports to a number of 3D formats, including Google Earth .kmz files, while the Pro version extends support to include .3ds, .dwg, .dxf, .fbx, .obj, .xsi, and .wrl file formats. Google SketchUp can also save “screenshots” of the model as .bmp, .png, .jpg, .tif, with the Pro version also supporting .pdf, .eps, .epx, .dwg, and .dxf.

Ruby Application Programming Interface (API)

Ruby is a scripting language whose use in SketchUp was first introduced in SketchUp 4. Since its introduction SketchUp users have shown their creativity by creating hundreds of useful tools using SketchUp Ruby.

There is a Hello World Tutorial for Google SketchUp about creating dialog boxes.

Other Information

• Developed by  Google (previously @Last Software)
• Initial release  August 2000
• Latest release  6.4.112 (Windows) / 6.4.120 (Mac OS X) / December 14, 2007
• OS  MS Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Apple Mac OS X (10.4-10.5) (Universal Binary)
• Available in  English, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Spanish
• Type  3D computer graphics
• License  Freeware/Proprietary

Links

• Website  www.sketchup.com
• Google 3D Warehouse
• SketchUp Video Tutorials
• SketchUp Google Group
• SketchUp – Wikipedia

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