Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1475547
brought in PNGs that had transparency as planes – just geometric rectangles – and the shaders and simple UV maps were au- tomatically generated at the aspect ratio of each image file." In Blender, Collins added a default cam- era to the scene and positioned everything in Y space (in Blender, the Z axis runs verti- cally). Then, using keyframes, he animated the camera to move left to right in a linear motion. "I was able to parallax it in Blender by simply creating planes with images on them. This improved the look of the end credits, taking them from simple "pan and scan" type still images to having dynamic movement in the backgrounds. And it took 15 minutes to make each background. That's really quick. You usually can't do anything in 3D in less than an hour," he said. Typically, editors aren't concerned with motion graphics, but when Collins was an assistant editor, he was in charge of putting the credits on the screen. That's when he had the ah-ha moment of "what if I use some of my existing skills in Blender to make the credits look better?" Later, that responsibility fell to his assistant editor, Cassie Hanks, who also has experience working in 3D animation. "I asked if she'd like to take over doing these dynamic end credit backgrounds, and she got really excited. Even though she is in the Editor's Guild and is an editor, she was hap- py to get her hands dirty with 3D animating again," Collins said. Now Hanks is exploring Blender on her own, learning how to use it through Blender's online documentation, tutorials, and community support. "Blender's online community is huge," said Collins, who is part of a Meetup.com group that discusses Blender's new features as they are released. "The more you get into Blender, the deeper it goes; it's a rabbit hole. As you go further, you realize you're at the bleeding edge and that the people who are writing the code to make it even cooler are your peers. I think that's why it's so sticky – why people love the community – because if you get far enough into it, you become one of the coders, or you become one of the product testers. Your identity gets connected to it because you helped make it or improve it." 4D FÜN Looking for the next level in animation, beyond 2D and 3D linear storytelling? So is Brian Master, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of 4D Fün, Inc. – a company that is blazing a trail into 4D volumetric capture. Master has been working professionally in animation since 1993, editing both picture and sound, and even working as an ani- mator. But his animation editing career is currently on hold as he seeks to realize his vision for future entertainment – think vir- tual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality content. A c c o rd i n g t o t h e 4 D F ü n , I n c . s i t e (https://4dfun.io/), volumetric perfor- m a n c e t e c h n o l o g y u t i l i z e s t h e m o s t advanced 4D technology to generate a 360-degree virtual representation of any captured performance. 4D Fün's volumetric capture stage is equipped with an array of 32 RGB cameras that use advanced artifi- cial intelligence technology, Lidar (light detection and ranging), and laser scanning techniques to render realistic three-dimen- sional human beings in motion. What does that mean exactly? Here's a n e x t r e m e l y s i m p l i f i e d e x a m p l e o f what that workflow looks like for a single singer performance. The stage at 4D Fün in Culver City is a 30-foot tall cylinder with green-colored "cyc" walls (i.e., cyclorama, which is a curved wall used as a photo or video back- ground to suggest unlimited space) and built-in light panels for uniform lighting. Typically, there are 32 UHD cameras posi- tioned evenly around the space to capture the performer from all sides, from foot level to overhead. These are connected to proprietary custom-designed production tools that use artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to generate 3D models of what's happening on stage in full Tim Collins. Another view of the Blender platform. 44 C I N E M O N T A G E T E C H