Epic Tech
21/05/2013
In February 1986, six people who had worked in Elmsford, New York, at MAGI on Disney's Tron, decided to form a computer animation company. The founders Carl Ludwig, Dr. Eugene Troubetzkoy, Chris Wedge, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Michael Ferraro named it Blue Sky Studios. Ludwig was an electrical engineer who had worked for NASA on tracking systems for the Apollo mission's lunar module. Troubetzkoy had put a PhD in theoretical physics to work creating computer simulations of nuclear particle behavior. Wedge was a classically trained animator with a master's degree in computer graphics from Ohio State University.
Working for months without pay in the early days, Troubetzkoy, Ferraro, and Ludwig developed proprietary physics-based rendering software called CGI Studio. During the next 10 years, the small studio survived as an effects house for commercials and feature films. Then, Wedge persuaded the Blue Sky team to work on a short animated film.
That film, Bunny, won an Oscar in 1998, and caused ripples in CG circles: Ludwig and Troubetzkoy's software had made possible the first use of radiosity throughout an animated film. The physically based rendering gave the film a unique, natural look. And that film transformed Blue Sky Studios, soon after acquired by Twentieth Century Fox, into a feature animation studio now known, especially, for its Ice Age films. The studio's most recent animated feature, Epic, sends the CG camera from the human world into a backyard as seen from the tiny characters who live there. (Read a Q&A with Chris Wedge in the May/June 2013 issue of CGW.)
CGW Contributing Editor Barbara Robertson spoke with Carl Ludwig, vice president and chief technology officer at Blue Sky Studios, about the innovative studio's latest film, Epic.
Did you develop new technology specifically for this film? We're in constant development; we develop things all along, but this is the first film where we've really pulled out all the stops and could show what we do. The human animation is extraordinary. The lighting is incredible. We have extensive use of subsurface diffusion that allowed us to do forest scenes with glowing leaves and appropriate shadows. The leaves glow when sunlight hits them.
Chris [Wedge] was very clear about what he wanted. It was a challenge, but he had faith that we could to it, and we did. And, it wasn't just people in research, it was rigging, it was every department. Everyone stepped up to the plate. Chris wanted to take advantage of our strength, and we certainly did in this movie. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. The amount of detail is amazing.
Is the extensive use of subsurface diffusion due to faster hardware? In general, it's just that we've moved on with our development. We started with raytracing in 1987, from our inception, because it simulates the way light behaves, and that allows you to simulate the physical reality in nature: the subsurface diffusion, the way the shadows play, radiosity. We have all that, and have been doing it for years. Everyone said we were crazy. Now, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, but we have a big lead.
Each film brings us another notch up, and for this film, we really pushed it. We can do almost real-time lighting now we can change one light at a time and recalculate shadows and that helps with production speed.
Didn't the amazing amount of detail affect rendering speed, though? Yes. But, there is a reason we can do a tremendous amount of detail. Most people raytrace the polygons. We don't do that. We don't subdivide into polygons. We track directly to bicubic patches; we solve the intersections directly and quickly, and that makes a huge difference. It saves a lot of memory. It took years and years to develop this capability; it didn't come easy. But we've been doing it for years, and we're cashing in on it now.
We also have a power voxel capability that allows us to render fine detail at huge distances. Saving memory is extraordinarily important, and we do that very well. It allows us to render a complex scene and still contain it within the allotted memory.
And, the raytracer is built with intelligence in mind. It's not a simple path tracer that starts a ray and lets it go. At every intersection, we make decisions about what to do next, how many rays should be fired next, and where they should be fired.
How is the raytracer making decisions? You could consider it an information-gathering exercise. The ray reaches an intersection and asks, What do I do now? What information do I need? What don't I need?' It makes decisions based on what it knows so far and what it needs to know, and decides what to do. Maybe the ray reaches a surface and there are a number of lights on that surface. It asks which lights contribute more and which contribute less. That's a very simple decision to make.
We spent years trying to get something to look right, and then we figured out how to make it faster. When CPUs were slow and memory was sparse, we had to really concentrate on those things. We laid that groundwork at a time when there was no other way to do it, and it serves us well now. And, all that background of making the renderer faster led to this way of making decisions properly.
Tell us about your interactive lighting. A number of years ago, we threaded all the code, and now machines have multiple cores. So, now we can bring in a scene, and once we have it, we can move one light at a time and re-render it. Of course, the first render takes longer, and if you change more than one light at a time, it slows down, but you usually change only one at a time. I have a frame in front o
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet Appoints Santiago Solanas as CEO to Lead Next Era of Growth and Innovation
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet and Veritone Reach Agreement to Distribute, Transact and Monetize Media Archives
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
17/05/2024
FCC Plans to Revise LPTV Rules
The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would revise rules governing low power TV stations (LPTV) in a number of areas, including online ...
17/05/2024
Demystifying Post-Production: Introducing Cinema 4D Particles Week 4
Demystifying Post-Production: Introducing Cinema 4D Particles Week 4 Brie Clayton May 17, 2024 0 Comments With the spring release of Maxon One, we...
17/05/2024
Takashi Yamazaki Film Godzilla Minus One Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Takashi Yamazaki Film Godzilla Minus One Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio Brie Clayton May 17, 2024 0 Comments Hero image credit: 2023 TOHO CO., LT...
17/05/2024
Sterling Event Group Streamlines Live Event Productions with AJA
Sterling Event Group Streamlines Live Event Productions with AJA Brie Clayton May 17, 2024 0 Comments Live event productions only happen once, which ...
17/05/2024
Meet the product manager
Muster Ngobi, product manager at LYNX Technik tells TVBEurope how the ever-evolving media industry provides a truly dynamic working environment By Matthew Corr...
17/05/2024
TV, Streaming Schedule for 2024 NFL Regular Season Is Released
NEW YORK As declines in linear TV viewing make the ongoing popularity of live sports, particularly football, central to financial success of the TV industry, th...
17/05/2024
Netflix Ad Tier Hits 40M Monthly Active Users
During Netflixs second Upfront presentation to advertisers, Amy Reinhard, Netflix's president of advertising, walked advertisers through the continued growt...
17/05/2024
Scripps Promotes Jeff Kiernan to VP, Local News
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company has added to its leadership team for news by promoting Jeff Kiernan a veteran journalist and general manager of Scripps'...
17/05/2024
Survey: New Disney-Fox-WBD Sports Streamer May Hurt Pay TV Sub Counts
Top executives from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have consistently insisted that their joint venture to launch the Venu Sports streaming bundle in the...
17/05/2024
Caitlin Clark's WNBA Debut Set Viewing Records
ESPN has announced that its coverage of Caitlin Clark's WNBA debut in the Indiana Fever versus the Connecticut Sun season opener was the most-watched WNBA g...
17/05/2024
ATEM Mini Extreme ISO switcher and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
ATEM Mini Extreme ISO switcher and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K Brie Clayton May 16, 2024 0 Comments Blackmagic Design announced today that Yoic...
17/05/2024
Pixomondo's Virtual Production Academy Expands with Programs at Sony PCL, Vook, and Vancouver Film School
Pixomondo's Virtual Production Academy Expands with Programs at Sony PCL, Vo...
17/05/2024
WBD Upfront Show Offers Peeks at House of the Dragon,' White Lotus,' Biden-Trump Debate
The Warner Bros. Discovery upfront presentation took place Wednesday, May 15 at ...
17/05/2024
The Black Keys, Jelly Roll, Kate Hudson Set To Perform on The Voice' Finale
Season 25 of The Voice wraps on NBC Tuesday, May 21, with performances from The Black Keys, Jelly Roll, Kate Hudson, Lainey Wilson, Muni Long, Thomas Rhett and ...
17/05/2024
CNN Boss Mark Thompson's Plan Includes More News in More Categories on More Devices (Upfronts)
New CNN CEO Mark Thompson spelled out his plan for the struggling news network d...
17/05/2024
Netflix To Launch In-House Advertising Tech Platform
Netflix, a newcomer to the advertising business, said it plans to launch an in-house advertising technology platform....
17/05/2024
Netflix Plots TV Takeover at Upfront Presentation
Netflix shared some programming projects at an upfront presentation in New York. Those include the basketball-themed comedy series Running Point, a Mindy Kaling...
17/05/2024
Plex Geek Week Sale Offers 20% Off Plex Lifetime Pass
Plex is offering movie and music collectors a 20% discount off its Lifetime Plex Pass as part of its Geek Week sale....
17/05/2024
GroupM Names Toby Jenner as President, GroupM Clients
Giant media buyer GroupM said it named Toby Jenner as global president, Group M Clients, a new position at the company....
17/05/2024
Clients of Independent Agencies Boost Programmatic Buying
Smaller advertisers are increasingly buying connected TV programmatically, according to a new report from FreeWheel, Comcast's ad-tech unit....
17/05/2024
TCLtvPlus Adds Streaming Music Channels From Vevo
TCLtvPlus, the streaming app on smart TVs made by TCL, has added live linear channel from music-video programmer Vevo....
17/05/2024
StackAdapt Adopts Data From Samba TV for Programmatic Campaigns
StackAdapt said it made a deal to integrate data from Samba TV into its programmatic advertising platform....
17/05/2024
Skeem Saam: Thursday's episode, 16 May 2024 [video]
Skeem Saam: Thursday's episode, 16 May 2024 [video]Missed an episode of Skeem Saam? No problem! Watch the latest episode of your favourite South African soa...
17/05/2024
Prison Journalism: Letter to my mothers
Prison Journalism: Letter to my mothersThabo Mthembu was incarcerated in Pollsmoor Prison from 2014 to 2019. Read Thabo's story by Thabo Mthembu 17-05-20...
17/05/2024
Paul McCartney becomes UK's first billionaire musician
Paul McCartney becomes UK's first billionaire musicianMusic icon Paul McCartney has become the UK's first billionaire musician, according to the Sunday ...
17/05/2024
Tonight on Smoke and Mirrors: Sakhile advises Tiny against sabotaging Petunia
Tonight on Smoke and Mirrors: Sakhile advises Tiny against sabotaging PetuniaDon't miss Friday, 17 May's riveting episode of South African soapie Smoke ...
17/05/2024
RT'S Operation Transformation comes to a close after 17 seasons
RT has today announced that Operation Transformation (OT) is to end after 17 seasons. As series come to an end each year, RT undertakes an editorial review to...
17/05/2024
Studio One: Your Binaural Beats Lab
By Craig Anderton When I heard about binaural beats, I was interested-I like beats, and I'm into binaural audio. But this has nothing to do with either o...
17/05/2024
May 16, 2024
Scripps Research chemist Donna Blackmond elected to the Royal Society of the U.K. Blackmond's wide-ranging work has shaped origin of life theories, our unde...
16/05/2024
Power Provokes Vital Questions About the Role of Police
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 18: Director Yance Ford introduces the Power premiere at Library Center Theatre. (Photo by Chad Salvador/Shutterstock for Sundance F...
16/05/2024
Mental Health Matters: Embrace Self-Care With These Audiobook and Podcast Listens
May is Mental Health Awareness month, a time to recognize those living with ment...
16/05/2024
ABC and SBS bring digital radio (DAB+) services to the Gold Coast
ABC and SBS bring digital radio (DAB ) services to the Gold Coast 15 May, 2024 Media releases ABC and SBS today announced that audiences on the Gold Coast ...
16/05/2024
Clear-Com Communication Solutions Enhance Oregon State University's PRAx Building
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
16/05/2024
6 New Clearmountain's Domain Presets
Share this article width=32 height=32 data-lazy-src=https://apogeedigital.com/app/themes/juniper-theme/src/img/icons/facebook-purple.svg /> width=32 height=...
16/05/2024
Updated: Netflix to Stream Live Christmas Day NFL Games
In a major example of how large streaming services are successfully battling for lucrative sports rights, Netflix has announced that it has secured global right...
16/05/2024
ESPN, Fox, WBD Unveil Name for New Sports Streaming Service
LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK More than three months after announcing plans to launch a major new sports streaming service, ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery,...
16/05/2024
CTV/Streaming Top of Mind for Marketers in 2024
In a survey conducted late last year, marketing companies said their main focus for increasing advertising would be CTV/streaming. Generative AI, which was not ...
16/05/2024
CPB Issues More Grants for Next-Generation Warning
Three public radio and one public television outlet are the latest recipients of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to upgrade their emergency...
16/05/2024
A year in live HDR production
John Mailhot, senior vice president, product management at Imagine Communications, gives an insight into how HDR is impacting live production today, as well as ...
16/05/2024
Sony Pictures Post Production Services Completes Expansion of its Sound Facilities
Sony Pictures Post Production Services Completes Expansion of its Sound Faciliti...
16/05/2024
Telestream Taps Power of AI to Manage, Define Media Workflows
TV Tech recently sat down with Telestream CEO Rhonda Bassett-Spiers and CTO Simon Clark to discuss how the M&E industry is adapting the cloud, IP and AI to enha...
16/05/2024
1185 Films launches one stop shop' for industry talent
1185 Talent will include directors, editors, colourists, VFX artists and photographers By Jenny Priestley Published: May 16, 2024 1185 Talent will include...
16/05/2024
Updated: Presteigne Broadcast Hire enters administration
The administrators said they are focused on trading the business as a going concern while they assess options, including exploring the possibility of a sale By...
16/05/2024
AWS CEO Adam Selipsky steps down
Selipsky will leave the company on 3rd June, and will be succeeded by Matt Garman, a senior vice president who has overseen sales and marketing at AWS By Jenny...
16/05/2024
Sony Pictures Post Production Services Completes Sound Facilities Expansion
Sony Pictures Post Production Services has announced that the final phase of a multi-year effort to expand and modernize its motion picture and television sound...
16/05/2024
CNN, ABC to Televise Two Presidential Debates
President Joe Biden and Former President Donald Trump have agreed to participate in two televised debates, the first of which will be hosted by CNN on June 17....
16/05/2024
Disney+ Debuts First Concert Film to Stream with IMAX Enhanced Sound
BURBANK, Calif. and NEW YORK Disney+, IMAX Corporation, and DTS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xperi, have announced that Queen Rock Montreal is now streaming ...
16/05/2024
WBD Unveils Advanced Advertising Features for Max
NEW YORK During its upfronts presentation, Warner Bros. Discovery announced a suite of new advanced ad products available on Max, that include shoppable ads, ad...