Previz Society Meeting on "Oz: The Great and Powerful"
Last weekend, I made a trip out to the Previsualization Society speaker series with WETA Motion Capture Technical Director Matthew Kapfhammer.
Prior to the talk, I had a chance to sit down and speak with Matt on his experience at WETA Digital and brainstorm new ways of how procedural preproduction tools could benefit everyone on the capture stage. He too believed that the SmartVCS was a great proof of concept of the sort of capture performance that was achievable in a mobile station but proposed a more direct link to production software such as Autodesk Maya or MotionBuilder to make it more viable for studios. I believe the system could exist in two forms, as a solely mobile experience with assets loaded right on the iPad and as a network streamed solution where all capture assets live in the cloud/remote PC. It was great to have an opportunity to speak to someone who is working with the cutting edge of capture technologies. I wish him the best on his work back in New Zealand and look forward to staying in touch :)
The talk was presented by Trevor Tuttle (The Third Floor, Previs Supervisor), Artie Contreras (Art Director), Brian Pace (The Third Floor Inc, Virtual Art Department Lead, Head of Technology), Joe Lewis (General Lift, EncodaCam Developer) on their work "Visualizing the World of Disney's Oz: The Great and Powerful". Some key takeaways from the talk were the following:
Purpose of Previs is to "Unify the Vision" and provide a blueprint for every member of production, beyond the Director.
Creating tangible physical worlds and sets benefit the performance quality of actors acting in an otherwise virtual blue-screen stage.
Puppet Camera System: An acting prop consisting of a webcam with a screen on the end of a boom-arm. The screen displays another actor (playing a CG character) acting remotely & live in a sound booth. This creates a more natural performance for both actors since they are able to see and react to each other in real-time, even though one is real and the other will eventually be virtual.
EncodaCam: Compose live & CG elements simultaneously. Combined with Director's Layout (DLO) Virtual Camera System to display real-time composite with virtual camera capture.
The motto when developing production tools: "How to get my stuff to work with their stuff without breaking everything."
A LIDAR Station was used to scan the physical full set. This point cloud data was used to accurately translate the virtual camera motion with the real camera.
When developing previz for set, be sure to watch out for unrealistic shots that need to be shot with a physical camera. Make sure to gather the correct lens information as well as accurate motion information from the camera rigs.
Previs is not a lockdown on a shot, it acts as a director's draft. It inspires risk and experimentation of shots prior to and on-set, but the director has a fallback with storyboards/previs. More than anything, previs sometimes shows the director what not to do on set, and that's ok.
If you are interested in seeing the rest of my notes and images from the meeting: Previsualization Society Meetup - 10/26/2013
This week is a busy one at SideFX - we are moving from our Third Street Promenade office to the Santa Monica Business Park! While I will miss the bustling shops and myriad eateries by the pier, it will be nice to break in the new facility with some exciting projects and opportunities in the coming weeks including a trip to the GDC: Next Conference and Walt Disney Animation Studios ;)
Don't settle, G
