Computer Graphics World

March 2009 20 n n n n CG I•Stereoscopy Similarly, when General Monger buzzes around Susan/Ginormica as he leads her through the monster prison, pulling him out into the audience and pushing her deep into the screen enhanced the size dif- ference between the two. But while they were determined to keep the stereo 3D effects subtle, the directors did embrace a few possibilities for what Vernon calls the "boo" factor. For example, when Insecto- saurus shoots silk out his nose, it zooms right out into the audience. Managing the Effects Working in stereo 3D affected all the de- partments. e layout department had to think about camera setups that maximized the effect, but that also worked in 2D. Animators needed to be careful about eye lines and about positioning characters that touched something. "We all had a constant dialog as we looked for what our stereo sensibility is," says Bielenberg, who notes that stereo 3D challenged the creative side of effects more than with other films. "We designed the effects to have the maximum impact in stereo," Bielenberg explains. "We'd look for opportunities— lightning bolts, smoke, and sparks—where the story motivated the effects and the au- dience was so immersed in the scene that the effects didn't take them out of the pic- ture. If they were too front and center, or felt too deliberate, we'd pull them back. We wanted the effects to make the story more dramatic. is wasn't a movie about stereo, like a theme-park ride." Even so, Bielenberg singles out two great stereo 3D effects moments: During first contact, when the military is attacking the alien robot, bits of debris with streaming smoke behind them fall into the audience space. And in a later sequence, when Susan dives to the bottom of a ship with all the monster characters, she and the characters come off screen. "When the ship explodes, they are silhouetted against the explosion and all the sparks behind them," he says. To create these effects, the crew need- ed to work almost entirely in 3D CG. "Comp'ing tricks didn't hold up," Bielen- berg says. "In the past, for example, we could do heat-wave distortions in 2D, but in stereo, they wouldn't have the right depth. Sometimes, if we matted correctly, we could do 2D glows, but usually we had to put in 3D beams and use our volumet- ric renderer." In addition to the challenges with stereo 3D, the scope of the film, which was the largest effects film that DreamWorks Ani- mation has done, taxed the studio. Typical- ly, approximately 20 people join an effects crew for an animated feature. For this film, Bielenberg supervised 45 effects artists and nearly 80 lighting artists. "We had a lot of effects sequences," Bielen- berg says. "Destruction was big. A chase in San Francisco had a lot of building destruc- tion. We destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge. We also had gunfire and explosions." For particle effects, the studio used a com- bination of Autodesk's Maya and propri- etary tools. For destruction, they used Maya plug-ins from Blast Code for the first time. And, for fluid simulations, the effects team relied on the studio's award-winning propri- etary software originally developed for Antz. "Scope and creativity were the challenges, not new software," Bielenberg says. In terms of the character effects, other than developing the right reflections for BOB, Susan's hair provided the most inter- esting problems. "Getting the right styling and lighting for her white hair was a mas- sive effort," Bielenberg says. Jeffrey "JJ" Jay, one of the character TDs who worked on setting up the con- trols to move Susan's hair, explains. "I don't think we had done hair dynamics at that scale before," he says. "It wasn't a major issue. We didn't have to create new technology; we could use our proprietary system. It was more a matter of finding settings that worked." Jay also worked on rigging for "generic woman A," who appeared in crowds as sec- retaries in the war room, as soldiers, and so forth. "ey're generally off in the distance and don't have speaking roles," he says. Jay, who has moved on to become the character TD supervisor for Shrek Goes Fourth, notes that the studio incorporated new rigging techniques for a few characters in this film. "We like to fold a bit of the new technolo- gy in to prove it out and see how it works," he notes. "Ideally, animators would like to animate in real time, to scrub and see char- acters move. We're on that path." For clothes, the studio again primarily used the same tools as usual—Maya Cloth and Syflex software—but this time, they folded in a Maya plug-in, Kualify, from a Korean company. "We really wanted Stereo 3D caused the effects department to throw such comp'ing tricks as 2D heat-wave distortions and 2D glows overboard and rely instead almost entirely on 3D CG and volumetric rendering, as they did to create this light beam.

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