Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/457057
j a n u a r y . f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5 c g w 4 1 One of the other diffi culties was devising scripts to properly decode two diff erent data com- pression algorithms used for the graphics: Lempel-Ziv sliding window compression and a customized run-length encod- ing for animation frames. "Data compression was very important in the 1990s to speed up loading from slow 100 kb/sec CD-ROM drives and to conserve scarce memory, which totaled only 2 Mb to 4Mb for both the operating system and applica- tion," says Siegel. "So the Living Books products relied heavily on keeping animation frames run-length encoded in memory and drawing them directly in that format – it was one of Living Books' original technical breakthroughs." Siegel continues: "It reduced the graphics size and sped up drawing both by a factor of about 3 X, enabling suffi ciently fast playback of hand-drawn animation without constantly stopping to load new graphics from the CD-ROM. It was crit- ical to get this done effi ciently and correctly. Additionally, the new platforms are now power- ful enough to not only decode the data and display the data, but also scale it dynamically us- ing bi-cubic interpolation to fi t the optimal resolution for each device the apps run on." Additionally, lots of tweak- ing had to be done to get the new engine to play back the animations correctly. Objects on each storybook page have action scripts set by the original animators. Says Siegel, "The abilities and interpretation of these scripts were extended and refi ned over several years throughout the production of the original storybooks. To re-create the storybooks' exact behavior, the new engine need- ed fi ne adjustments to get all the script capabilities right, and to negotiate confl icts between diff erent interpretations." K E E P I N G T H I N G S T H E S A M E Like the Pixar projects, all the storybook animation remained essentially the same. But for Wanderful, it was even more important to make sure none of the animation had to be modi- fi ed. The original scene produc- tion was done in Macromedia Director, an animation tool long since discontinued. Creating a new animated Wanderful title screen to play back in the engine required resurrecting some of the original 20-year-old production so ware. "Rob Bell (one of the other original Living Books programmers) and I spent days pulling obsolete Mac comput- ers from storage and cobbling them together into an archaic confi guration we fi nally got to work, patching scraps of so - ware from eBay and ancient CD-ROMs into a new produc- tion pipeline," Siegel recalls. "Bootstrapping a functioning system that could run the so - ware and access the Internet for data transfer was a test of our determination." Other diffi culties arose from the desire to maintain one core code base for all platforms. This included the ancillary assets that were created to enhance the information provided with each storybook application. A decision was made to create these ancillary assets in HTML/JavaScript and display them using an embed- ded browser that appears to be part of the application. A N E W B E G I N N I N G Despite these challenges and technical diffi culties, both Pixar and Wanderful have demon- strated that producing new, vibrant products based on products created and released a decade or more before are possible and practical if motivated, talented teams are assembled for this purpose and the so ware they must revive is suitable to being updated. In fact, the new products they produced have earned awards and acclaim for bringing new life to classic entertain- ment. Moreover, they have prov- en that digital alchemy can be realized through the box-offi ce success of Pixar's 3D fi lms and sales of Wanderful's popular applications. ¢ Author's Note: This article could not have been written without the help and insight from the Pixar 3D team, especial- ly Mark VandeWettering and Daniel McCoy, and Wanderful's programming team: Matt Siegel, Glenn Axworthy, and Rob Bell. Special thanks also goes to Pix- ar's Joshua Hollander and Chris Wiggum, who helped get the conversation at Pixar started and monitored the communications eff ectively. Mickey W. Mantle is founder and CEO of Wanderful, Inc. His insight into Pixar's RenderMan was gained as director of 3D graphics at Pixar when RenderMan was fi rst productized in the late 1980s and as Broderbund's Living Books VP of engineering and CTO during the 1990s when Broderbund created and released the Living Books series of products. FOR MORE DETAILS ABOUT THIS PROJECT, INCLUDING CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS, GO TO EXTRAS IN THE JANUARY.FEBRUARY 2015 ISSUE BOX C G W. C O M ONE ISSUE IN FINDING NEMO THAT ALSO AROSE IN OTHER MOVIE SCENES ILLUSTRATES HOW A STEREOSCOPIC FILM HAS MORE OF A NEED TO HAVE "EVERYTHING LOOK CORRECT."