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| To scare or not to scare... |
I watched Pixar's "Monster University" (MU) on the cinema the other day.
MU is fun, entertaining, and very Pixar quality. The animation is great and the CG is very detailed, one thing I noticed is how amazingly REALISTIC and BEAUTIFUL the Materials, Lighting and Renderings shown in this animated feature. In MU, Pixar really shows off their "realistic" rendering more than ever.
I read that for MU, Pixar uses the same realistic rendering treatment used in "The Blue Umbrella" with physically based Global Illumination, and then push it to the next level, where the look becomes more stylistic and all the color is pushed beyond the normal level. And that is truly shown very VIVIDLY in MU.
From their VARIATIONS of Monsters with seemingly endless, MATERIALS applied for every characters, whether their skin is Furry or Slippery Snake-Like, the RENDERING feels amazingly real.
You have to watch MU yourself to really understand what I mean.
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| Google Search: Monster University. |
PIXAR DREAM
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| 2004 Pixar Exhibition in Melbourne. |
I admit that one of my biggest dream is to work in great studio like Pixar, Disney or Studio Ghibli. Actually, more importantly: to meet the great artists and people who make great movies.
These days, there are also Dreamworks, Blue Sky, Sony Picture Image Works and also with 3D Game Industry, we have big Studios that produces amazing games, such as from Ubisoft, Square, Sony Computer Entertainment, Blizzard, and so on.
I am sure that many of you have that same dream.
For example, this guy who wants to model every Pixar character :) a bit crazy, but good luck to him. I think he would better create his own work.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgwhat/i-will-3d-model-every-pixar-character
Rewind many years back, when I was little, I have always wanted to work for Disney. There are a lot of memorable Disney characters (Donald, Mickey, Goofy, etc) and Disney movies (The Lion King, Aladdin, Beauty and The Beast, Tarzan).
At the same time, I have also lucky enough to watch some anime movies and lots of Japanese mangas.
I recall watching "Totoro" on LaserDisc system when I was 8. Not until 10 years later, I found out that it was done by Ghibli Studio and Miyazaki Hayao is the Master (God) of Anime that is responsible for this movie.
These are list of some of the most EPIC feature animated films:
1. TATSU NO KO TARO / TARO THE DRAGON BOY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79NXUTkYAEo
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061069/
2. THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER (Richard Williamson)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thief_and_the_Cobbler
3. AKIRA (Otomo Katsuhiro)
4. CLEOPATRA (Osamu Tezuka - God of Manga)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_(1970_film)
See also Osamu Tezuka's Manga, such as: BUDDHA.
5. ALL MIYAZAKI / GHIBLI ANIMATIONS
- Laputa Castle In The Sky
- Totoro
- Spirited Away
- etc
That is a little bit of old story... I started to feel old school now.
Anyways, I am always into animation since little. Then I got into 3D and Computer Graphics and now fall in love with both ANIMATION and COMPUTER GRAPHICS.
Even if I never work at Pixar or big company, I will make "my own Pixar". Just small studio with good people to create some animations that entertain many. Simple dream, really.
IT IS ONLY A TOOL... OR IS IT REALLY?
I think sometimes the CG world is a little bit of "distraction" because of the TOOLS itself is something that needs to be learn and master on top of the ART OF ANIMATION and STORYTELLING itself and often time we need to ensure both are working nicely. It is kind of mixing Math and Art together.The advantage of Computer Animation is that some of the works can be done with help of computers. Complexity is supposed to be easy for computer. But sometimes computer over-complicate things, where in the end maybe all we need is frame by frame animations.
So, traditional Art, hand drawn Drawings, Paintings, Animation are still important, probably more important than ever. But on top of that, whenever it comes to Computer Animation, we need to learn more skills:
1. Sculpting for 3D Modeling
2. Rigging before 3D Animation
3. Understanding of real world physical lights for Material creation, Lighting, Rendering in 3D
4. Physics, Particles and VFX
5. Editing and Compositing
Of course you can't be good with everything, however, a good skills in every areas and specialize skill is what can help you to become successful.
We are now in a time where the TOOL, the TECHNOLOGY and the ART has matured. They are more available than ever to general people as well as the ARTISTS. The tools were used to be really complex, well it still is complex, but definitely a lot more user friendly for artists.
There are "Commercial" Tools that is widely used in "The Industry", such as:
- Maya
- Houdini
- Softimage
- Cinema4D
- 3dsmax
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
- ZBrush
- Mudbox
- After Effects
- Nuke
- Reference collected by Observation of Life
- Good sense of aeshetic
- Endless Passion in Art.
- A great Team.
- Determination and ability to work efficiently
- Time and a bit of money support
- An awesome powerful tool that is available for everyone, such as Blender.
STUDYING PIXAR MONSTER UNIVERSITY USING BLENDER
While watching MU, apart from enjoying the movie, the story the character and animation, I am also observing and trying to understand how Pixar may do their:1. Assets Management (environment) and Pipeline
2. Monster Creations --> Rigging --> Animation
3. Monster Materials and Shadings and Rendering
I want to start thinking about those 3 things above more seriously. Those three seems to be what interest me the most in CG Animation, after all.
One thing, .I actually wish that Pixar Renderman is available for Blender and well integrated just like when "Renderman for Maya" was implemented back then. I believe it is only a matter of time. In fact, I think Pixar Renderman can be used to render out 3D scene in Blender, although not as straight forward.
Renderman renderer is never be dependant of 3D package, it has always been a separate entity.
Now, I wish I have enough experience within "the industry" working on complex projects and see how other more experience artists would tackle bigger problems. At the moment, I feel a bit like Mike Wazowski, full of theories and ideas that need to be applied and executed.
Anyways... let's just have fun a little bit studying Monster University.
MONSTER FACTORY USING SKIN MODIFIER
I want to do a little bit of exploration of Monster Creations here in Blender, a rough study on "Monster Characters" like in Pixar MU.Of course, I am not attempting to re-create MU stuff in all the details. Even ONE character and animation would have taken a lot of time for a single person. That will be a bit crazy.
I am interested in the procedural creations of Monsters, such as below:
http://disney.go.com/monsters-university/create-a-monster/
We surely can do A LOT MORE than that very limited "interactive create a monster" above.
NOTE: Of course there are endless variety of monsters, depending on how we define a monster. I could probably reference monster designs like in POKEMON or creating your own monster based on the famous monsters. In our case, we will limit and set our focus on Pixar Monster University.
How are we going to generate 10, 100, 1000 variations of monsters? Yes, you guess it already by using Blender Skin Modifier. That will be the basis.
We know Skin Modifier in Blender, it is small feature that is super awesome. It's like ZBrush ZSpheres, except that Skin Modifier is very easy and intuitive to use because in order to create a MESH, we really just need to draw point and connecting edge and then tweak the strength to get into shapes.
SKIN MODIFIER is one feature that keeps appearing in my mind when observing Pixar's MU Monster Characters. Start by separating the PARTS of MONSTERS:
- Horns
- Fangs
- Antennae
- Wings
- Beaks
- Head
- Eye(s)
- Neck
- Arms and Many Arms
- Hands and Fingers and Nails
- Torso Shapes
- Number of Tentacles
- Tail
- Skin
- Fur
- Hair
- Fins
- Moustache
By separating those elements, we can then start mixing and matching them, maybe using Python. I do not know how I am going to do this.
The easiest is probably to start by using Skin Modifier to "draw" the SHAPES of the Main Monster Characters and then Secondary Monsters and then finally more Generic Monster Characters.
I use this Pixar Wikia as reference:
http://pixar.wikia.com/Category:Monsters_University_Characters
And this:
http://www.disneyme.com/movies/monsters-university/gallery
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| Be a fearless monster! |
Doing observation on the monsters in MU, we can start to see the Monster's features that can be broken drown into parts and patterns. Soon enough I started to note:
- There are SIMPLE and COMPLEX character. DEAN HARDSCRABBLE and TERRY & TERRI are complex, because they have plenty of limbs and very random combinations of parts.
- The size, proportions and locations of parts matter.
- The animals and insects used to create the monsters: Snail, Goat, Lizard, Snakes, Godzilla, Monkey, Insect, Dragon, Octopus, Blobs, Shrimps, Crab, Spiders, Elephant, Pig, Rhino and maybe Aliens. Pixar certainly LIMIT the monsters to certain palette of shapes, not using all.
- Pixar work is very complex and detailed, however, I found that they is a clever simple structure implemented. I think we can simplify the Parts of Monster like a LEGO pieces.
- Thinking about procedural monsters model, I have also thought about a way to procedurally RIGGING the monster, it needs some kind of modular system.
BLOCKING SIMPLE MONSTER SCHEMATIC
NOTE: The use of simple geometries is on purpose.
Using a simply basic shapes to block out the characters, we can see the different between SIMPLE and SOPHISTICATED monsters. If I am not wrong, most of the Monsters in Pixar MU are actually quite SIMPLE looking. Easier to the eyes. Except for some Main Characters, they are more unique and memorable. "Art" character is brilliant.
From the BLOCKING STAGE, we can started to see how parts may fit together to create MONSTER FACTORY. In the above diagram, I simplified the parts like this:
- HEAD: some monster does not have body, just head as body, some character has multiple heads!
- BODY/TORSO: Standing Vertical Monster, Crawling Horizontal Monster?
- TAIL, TENTACLE, NECK: Multiple Joints like Spine
- ARM/LEG: Simple 3 Joints, big leg, long leg long arm, squishy arms
- HAND/FOOT: Big, Small, How Many?
- FINGERS/TOES: Big, Small, How Many?
- WINGS
- TEETH, HORNS/FANGS: Big, Small, How Many?
- EYES: Big, Small, How Many?
- MOUTH
Of course on top of that, the monsters in MU have a lot of decorations:
- Clothings
- Hats
- Hair
- Fur
- Eyebrows
- Glasses
- Props
- Etc
Below are some Monster parts extracted based on few of the Monster University characters:
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| We probably need a lot more....! |
Useful Skin Modifier Tips:
- Ctrl+A = useful in adjusting the weight
- V = to rip off a vertex (split into two), useful when we are separating parts, then we mark Root for the separate parts and we can also do Separate Loose
- L = select all connected edges
- F while selecting points/vertex = connect
- Shift+D in edit mode to quickly duplicate edges
- A single point can be used as Eye Ball
- You can actually have a mesh with applied Skin Modifier with multiple Roots as long each edges are separates (!)
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| Multiple Roots of Skin Modifier, within the same Mesh Object. |
SCRIPT: Mark As Root for Every N Indices of Vertex Within A Single Mesh (Multiple Roots)
import bpy
skin = bpy.context.active_object.data.skin_vertices[0].data
for i,v in enumerate(skin):
#v.radius[0]= v.radius[1] = 0.04
# Mark Multiple Root every 5 Indices
if not (i%5):
print(i, v.use_root)
v.use_root = True
SKIN MODIFIER EDGES GALLERY
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| Edges Only View, Sans (without) Skin Modifier. |
MIX AND MATCH
Below are some of variations by manually switching the data of Monster parts.
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| Pikachu? |
BEWARE: UGLY MONSTERS!
Obviously, I oversimplified a lot of things at this stage.
1. GOOD COMBO: Some combination of monster parts will NOT give a good result. Skinny legs and fat body may not work, however, maybe many skinny legs will work, which is spider like.
2. APPEAL: Often a random combination just simply too silly and unappealing. Resemblance with existing monster design is also something to be avoided. How does the monster looks good TOGETHER?
3. UNITY: There are actually some monsters that are a little bit out of place or really does not belong in the same environment. Sea monster and flying monster and ground monster does not always mix. Re-using the same parts for other character can help to generate characters that look good together. There are few characters that I think does not belong in Monster University.
4. UNIQUE PERSONALITY: Would be more interesting when the monster is based on certain face or personality of a real person.
5. DESIGN: However, every now and then you have a lucky interesting result. Somewhat adding horn and tails and nails and fangs really make a monster. Sometimes though, just randomly combining parts resulting in a cheap looking design. What does this mean? One still need to carefully design the monster. The silhouette of monster is also important. Probably looking at nature for inspiration is still the best way. We know that some real life creatures are already monster like, but they are appealing.
6. FACIAL EXPRESSION: The face of the monster is also important. However, the overall look is what makes a character. Pixar Eyes used in every Pixar Character is also something that makes Pixar character looks great. Need to research on eyes....
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| It certainly takes time to design Team OK. Drawing and sketching monster characters is apparently lot faster to know what works and what does not work. |
MIX AND MATCH USING PYTHON
Ok, this is probably the trickiest bit that requires yet another layer of thinking. Well... actually to randomize parts of monsters is not that difficult. What may be slightly tricky is to place the parts of monster and put them together. It needs to be based on some kind of Template or probably each part of monster understand the Bound of parts.
Ideally, the setup should able to do quick random switching of Parts of Monsters from "outside" BLEND files not all in one file.
1. FOLDER STRUCTURE OF MONSTER PARTS
I imagine having a folder structure like below:
MONSTER
- HEAD
- head.000
- head.001
- head.002
- head.003
- BODY
- body.000
- body.001
- body.002
- body.003
- ARM
- HAND
- LEG
- TAIL
- HORN
- EYES
- WINGS
- HAIR
Modelers and creature designer can continue to built and populate all kind of parts of monsters. We need to ensure that each part would have certain Bounding Box.
2. IMPORTING AND LINKING MONSTER PART DATA
Then, the Python script should be able to import and link the data from outside.
3. PUT INTO POSITION AND CONNECT
Maybe with each parts of Monsters, we can use Python to automate the connection of parts, considering the PIVOT, end/start of edge and the bounding of parts.
Actually in here, we can us Shape Keys or Armature with Drivers to further randomize the size and shapes.
4. FURTHER REFINING
Ok, obviously I oversimplify a lot of things, once we have the shapes, the modeler needs to further sculpt the model. However, we have the Armature for free from Skin Modifier.
5. STORE DATA
Maybe we can store the monster data using XML.
6. RIG THE MONSTER!
And finally, create the rig ala Rigify! :) It sounds so simple.
ROUGH SCRIPT: RANDOMIZE GROUP DATA
Below rough script I quickly write for a friend to randomize Linked Group Data.
import bpy
import random as random
# Test script to randomize Group data
# LIST OF GROUP OBJECTS HARDCODED
nameA = "RedMonkey"
nameB = "GreenMonkey"
nameC = "BlueMonkey"
# How to use: select the Linked object, then run the script.
# This script will work for active object only.
def randomMe(number):
if number == 0:
name = nameA
elif number == 1:
name = nameB
elif number == 2:
name = nameC
print ("I chose you:", name)
bpy.context.object.dupli_group = bpy.data.groups[name]
randomMe(random.randrange(0,3))
def listAllGroup():
myGroups = bpy.data.groups
for item in myGroups:
print(item)
listAllGroup()
TO BE CONTINUED.........
INSPIRATION: CREATURE ARTISTS
Mike Corriero
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