Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/65907
n n n n Animation Using conventional video-game controllers, advertising personnel puppeteered the CG bears live. As a result, the characters reacted in real time to what was happening during the Super Bowl. designing the system that would run the streamed segment of the ad campaign. "The challenge was too good not to have a go at it," notes Webb, whose R&D team, like that of Woods', is always on the hunt for new options and opportunities for its technology. Real-time Moves According to Webb, the digital system had to handle two types of animation: longer perfor- mance-based segments of pre-generated con- tent, and the reactive real-time puppeteering— both of which would be fed and controlled through the Blitz-developed game engine. To get an understanding of the types of character reactions that might be needed for the streamed experience, the artists reviewed footage from previous Super Bowls. While the bears would be reacting to unpredictable situ- ations on the field, the animators also discov- ered that there was quite a lot of obvious and expected action, such as those associated with time-outs, first downs, touchdowns, and so forth. Since Madonna had already been signed for the halftime show, they knew to prepare a "Vogue" dance, as well. Framestore assumed responsibility for the pre-generated bespoke animations, which were less crucial to the immediate beats of the football game but important to adding variety to the content during the four-plus hours that it would appear on the Web. These included nearly 25 minutes worth of non- looping animations pertaining to the coin toss, the National Anthem, and so on. "We packed the engine with content that we knew would be applicable, and then we packed the engine full of fun fluff to produce a party atmosphere, with the bears walking around the room, with baby bears that wander in and dance, and penguins that bother the 20 April/May 2012 bears by continually stealing their popcorn," says Woods. "There was constant opportunity to bring in the pre-generated content on a whim." Blitz, meanwhile, devised the technology and the components for the engine, as well as the game-like animations that would be pro- cessed within the engine for the puppeteered action (postural gestures, mood adaptations, gestures, and so forth—the Patriots bear shak- ing its head in frustration, for example) that would coincide with the immediate beats of the game. "There is nothing in there that we could have gotten from another game company," says Woods of the BlitzTech game engine that was used. Although Blitz developed technology spe- cifically for this project, at the core is the Blitz- Tech game engine. According to Webb, the R&D group at Blitz develops small, modular components that are added to the engine as needed for each new project. For this one, they organized the flow of the information that allowed the bears to change moods, and developed the components—eye blinks, the way they gaze at objects—that kept the bears interesting and alive. "It let us set up control states to match the operations we wanted," explains Webb. "We also created some new components, especially on the rendering side, to match the Animal Logic renders [in the commercials]." In essence, the "puppeteering" resulting in the real-time animation was like playing a video game. Each bear was controlled in a so-called relative state by a person using the joystick and buttons on a gaming joypad controller. "We could make him look anywhere and put him in various states," explains Webb. ative state, which reflected its mood based on the team's performance at that time. Pushing the joystick up or down put the bear into the various states. The controller buttons, mean- while, triggered reactions (strong, medium, weak) according to the state. A strong reac- tion may prompt the bear to stand up and clap its hands, and settle back down onto the sofa. A strong negative reaction could make the character grasp its head in its hands and sigh. "As a user, the only two determinations you need to make are, 'What's my state?' and 'Am I making a strong reaction?' " says Webb. At any point, the Framestore pre-generated animations in the game engine could be trig- gered via a Web interface. For instance, if the Patriots bear was jumping up and down after a touchdown (which was puppeteered), a pre- generated animation of the baby bear wander- ing into the room could be triggered from the user interface. "There was no visible difference between our pre-generated clips and the emo- tional content driven by the game controllers," Webb says. One person from the agency was assigned to puppet each bear, with a third person, a content director, triggering the longer pre- generated segments via an interface created by Blitz. A creative director instructed when and the types of animations that should be done; he also interfaced with the social media team. "It was all perfectly coordinated from the same room" says Woods. The real-time puppeteering was done on a PC containing a high-end graphics card and running the BlitzTech game engine; the two game controllers were also connected to the PC. Much heavier computer power was required for the live streaming, however. To this end, nearly 30 people involved in the project camped out at Major League Base- ball's headquarters in New York City, which has one of the world's largest collections of streaming servers. "We knew we needed the capability to Each bear had a positive, neutral, and neg- stream content for a few hours, and we had to be sure we could accommodate the fans fol- lowing the real-time action on the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter," says Woods. Tip of the Iceberg Although the project used retro characters, the initial test was done with a more recent, more detailed CG character. "The key is that the audience should not notice the difference be- tween real time and pre-rendered. These bears have a lovable, cartoonish quality, and physi-