First things first: If you would like to attend the animago AWARD & CONFERENCE at a reduced price, the early bird discount period has been extended until 5 October. So, don’t delay any longer – book your flight or train and be part of the big birthday party for animago’s 20th anniversary. You can buy tickets here.
Speakers at the animago CONFERENCE
Virtual camera work in animation
Adam Habib from Pixar will discuss one of the least understood processes in animation work: the camera and staging, also known as layout. Adam joined Pixar in 2010 and was involved in “Inside Out” as layout lead and “Finding Dory”, among others, and has helped realise various Pixar short films. In his talk, he will show what makes a great layout and what tools he and his team use to achieve this goal. He will also explain how techniques such as motion capture change the layout process. Before joining Pixar, Adam worked as a live action cinematographer; this background has been a strong influence on his approach to layout.
Big city with fur and flair
As we reported in DP issue 02 : 16: “Zoomania” is a big city as colourful and diverse as its animal inhabitants. All parts of the CG city had to be customised to tell the story. Walt Disney Animation Studios used some of the tools and techniques from “Big Hero 6” as well as a few new developments to create the unique neighbourhoods in different architectural styles with different street patterns. The team was confronted with enormous scales and technical challenges in the realisation of “Zoomania”, such as clothing worn over fur and animal species in various sizes. In his presentation, General TD Brandon Jarratt will give an overview of the project and the processes involved.
Concept design for “Star Wars” and more
Even though technology is changing rapidly, the basis of visual storytelling remains the same. In his talk, Luis Guggenberger from ILM London will demonstrate how current techniques have changed his approach to concept design and why sometimes the pencil is still the best choice. The concept artist will show some of his work from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and explain what creative challenges await you in space … In addition to this feature film, Luis was also involved in “Iron Man 3”, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, “Avengers 1 & 2” and “Independence Day: Resurgence”.
Off to the cloud
Cloud rendering is currently a topic that virtually nobody can ignore. In his presentation “A practical guide to cloud rendering for small studios and freelancers”, freelance CG supervisor Oliver Markowski explains step by step how to connect your pipeline to the Amazon Cloud: From setting up a VPN, creating machine images, synchronising files to passing a render from V-Ray for Maya to the cloud. Oliver has over 13 years’ experience in commercials, VFX and automotive visualisation, having worked for Scanline, Trixter, Mackevision, RTT, Parasol Island and more recently Framestore Commercial London and Rise FX.
Arri will also be taking to the cloud at the conference: Media Product Manager Constantin Seiler will be shedding light on the Webgate service developed by Arri for video streaming and demonstrating the file management and collaboration of the service. Among others, the dailies of films such as “Resident Evil 6” and “Hitman Agent 47” were distributed via Webgate.
Watch out, shark!
Scanline Managing Director Thomas Zauner brings the water simulations and other CG effects for the surfer girl vs. shark drama “The Shallows” to the conference. The full CG shark was animated by Scanline, and the character also had to be integrated into live action footage, which was shot in an outdoor location in a water tank.
Fantasy in series
The “Game of Thrones” dragons from Pixomondo aren’t always nice either, but they can’t be found in reality. Lead Asset TD Sebastian Lauer will show how the CG dragons, which have been getting bigger and bigger since season 1, were created for season 6 and how the team from Frankfurt built the models, textures and shaders as well as the underlying anatomical structures for the required degree of photorealism of the fire-breathing CG creatures.
Another recent fantasy project for Pixomondo was the MTV series “The Shannara Chronicles”. The team designed CG monsters, large environments, magical effects and more; VFX supervisor Thilo Ewers will provide an overview of the processes.
We let it rip!
Why think small when you can go big – seems to be Roland Emmerich’s motto for his film projects. Luxx Studios was one of the many studios involved in “Independence Day: Resurgence”; the team from Swabia created, among other things, a futuristic Washington infiltrated by a hundred thousand alien flying machines and worked on the final retreat into Cheyenne Mountain and President Whitmore’s arrival in Area 51.
Canada focus
To once again highlight one of the most important hubs of the international VFX industry, we have invited studios with Canadian locations in co-operation with the Embassy of Canada: Digital Domain, Mr X and Sequence Group. Head of Animation & Animation Director Phil Cramer from DD talks about animation for feature films with a lot of VFX and presents the different approaches for “Independence Day 2”, “Pixels” and “Deadpool”.
Lead Lighting Artist Tom Morrison of Mr X Inc. brings animago visitors to Valhalla by providing a look behind the VFX processes for the History Television series “Vikings”.
Founder and Creative Director Ian Kirby from Sequence Group will show how it is possible for a small team of 15 people to create animations for major projects from Disney, Marvel and Microsoft.
And there’s much more …
An overview of the conference speakers so far (with more to come) can be found here.
See you on 27 and 28 October in Munich at the Gasteig? :)
Archive notice: This article was originally published on 2016-09-28. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
