Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/457057
46 cgw j a n u a r y . f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5 When the live-action groups began their work, the CG students started modeling characters, props, and environ- ments for both VFX fi lms and the previs project. Although there were discussions about possibly sharing assets, for the most part, the artists designed and built separate models for the fi lms. Some of the students wore multiple hats, covering a variety of duties and even sometimes working for multiple teams as additional props and characters were added. At the time, the school was piloting a new renderfarm solu- tion, outsourcing the 3D render- ing to service provider Render Rocket. "Since our rendering needs have more than quadru- pled over the past four years, we've been looking for models to serve the courses' needs. Students were able to test-ren- der the animations locally in our existing lab to check the artistic and technical details," explains Pontuti. "Once the tests were done and the fi les were double checked, the students could submit the renders through the Render Rocket Web interface." Students also created matte paintings and utilized the school's greenscreen studio for augmenting some of their location needs. V A L U A B L E C O N N E C T I O N S Another key aspect of the project was industry coopera- tion. Pontuti and Beck worked with Cinema Suite, Inc., which provided use of its then soon- to-be-released Cinema Director so ware. Cinema Suite also provided its motion-capture program, Cinema MoCap. Cinema Suite, a companion off ering for the Unity Game Engine, allows a production team to previsualize all shots and sequences in a fi lm. Tradition- ally, storyboards have been the primary previsualization tool for directors to help "imagine" their fi lms. Many productions are moving toward 3D visualization, allowing the entire fi lm to be viewed in a format that resem- bles a low-resolution 3D animat- ed movie, Pontuti points out. In fact, UW-Stout students began using Cinema Suite during its beta-testing phase, and provided product feedback to the technical team at Cinema Suite. "Our partnership with UW- Stout was critical for the future development of our cinematic tools. This collaborative project gave us in-depth feedback on our products and allowed us to make them even better for the general public," says Dan Gams- by of Cinema Suite. In addition to Cinema Suite so ware, Canon contributed to the project by providing students a special cinema cam- era, a Canon C100, for fi lming in Crystal Cave and for other aspects of the project. Furthermore, Matthew Kuchta, director of the school's Physics Image Lab, let students borrow an ultra-high-speed camera used for studying movement and physics-based collisions, record- ing at 10,000 frames per second. "Based on our initial conver- sations, we decided to build a small miniature set where we could demonstrate some exam- ples, including topics of how scale relates to movement and physics," says Pontuti. "Using a toy Transformer robot and some model-train components, we quickly mocked up a shot where the robot would slowly start to teeter and eventually fall into a dusty cloud of baby pow- der. A er a few takes and some help from some canned air, we had a pretty decent eff ect that demonstrated the potential." Pontuti, who teaches in the entertainment design program, and Beck, from game design and development, plan to con- tinue with their cross-course projects in the future. ยข E D U C A T I O N