Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 30, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
European Animation Art
The "Despicable Me" spin-off "The Minions" is already eagerly awaited by many animation fans. Two months before the official theatrical release, Jacques Bled and Kyle Balda from Illumination Mac Guff will explain how it was possible to distill three main characters from a multitude of identical figures. Other program highlights from the field of European animation art include talks by Simon Thomas and Nicolas Trout, who will speak about the hurdles and technical pitfalls of their first feature film "Asterix: The Mansions of the Gods", as well as by Luxx Studios from Stuttgart, who focus primarily on research innovations that make fur and feathers appear true to life. They used these for the animated film "Manou the Swift".
Blockbusters in VFX Case Studies
Rodolphe Chabrier from Illumination Mac Guff takes a close look at the third part of the "Taken" action-film series, "Taken 3". In Paul Franklin’s talk from Double Negative, alongside the technical aspects of "Interstellar", the discussion will also cover Franklin’s long-standing collaboration with Christopher Nolan, which significantly influenced the design and work processes. By comparison, Adam Davis – Head of Crowd Simulation & Motion Capture at MPC – reveals the creative and technical challenges that had to be overcome in generating the virtual armies in Ridley Scott’s "Exodus: Gods and Kings".
Games
Raphael Lacoste from Ubisoft talks about the art direction and image composition used in the realization of the open-world video game "Assassin’s Creed 4". The primary focus is on the immersive and interactive environments that give the player the greatest possible freedom of action, allowing them to move almost freely within the game
Javier Nicolai von der Pahlen from Activision Blizzard focuses on creating photorealistic characters that can be produced in real time using gaming hardware. His current research in this area is ultimately intended to be applicable to all characters in a given game. In addition, Pierre Raymond – who founded Hybride Technologies in 1991, now part of Ubisoft – presents the latest projects and developments currently taking place at Hybride.
Siggraph Paper
In the "Highlights of Siggraph" series curated by Adam Finkelstein, there are four presentations: Stelian Coros from Carnegie Mellon University describes the computer-based creation of mechanical characters, which allows animated virtual characters to be integrated into the real world. Carnegie Mellon University is represented by another speaker: Matt Stanton talks about "Self-Refining Games" – interactive and immersive gaming experiences based on a special pre-rendering technique that is guided by the player’s real gaming behavior. By comparison, Pierre Bénard from the Université de Bordeaux presents his research results, which are intended to enable a more accurate and refined form of representation in 3D animation. From France to the Czech Republic: Daniel Sýkora presents his revolutionary ink-and-ray technique, which gives hand-drawn characters global lighting effects. The result is a film project using traditional means of animation in a 3D look.
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