As the second day of GAFX 2017 dawns upon us, here’s a list of Talks and Presentation sessions that are scheduled to take place:
Making it Small: The Physics of Scale for DreamWorks Animation ‘Trolls’ by Alejandro Garcia
From the Iron Giant to The Borrower Arrietty, creating scale in animation is a challenge faced by artists in all studio departments. This talk will present a wide variety of techniques, based on physics principles, for making characters seem very large or very small. Specifically, these principles will be discussed as they were used in DreamWorks’ Trolls.
Designing and Executing ‘Doctor Strange’ by Faraz Hameed
Faraz gives a unique insight into the design process of coming up with the stunning and mind bending visuals of Doctor Strange as a Previs & Postvis supervisor. From the very first day of brainstorming and creating visuals at Marvel’s offices in Burbank (previs), executing complex shots being filmed in London (extensive techvis), and reassembling the shots with editorial (postvis) back at Marvel HQ, Faraz demonstrates how crucial it was to collaborate with different departments and explore creative technically challenging shoots under tight time restrictions. He also shows how the film industry has change to incorporate previs as it’s ‘visual backbone’ for film development and story.
The Visual Design of ‘The Good Dinosaur’ by Sharon Calahan
A behind the scenes look at the visual design goals and challenges of “The Good Dinosaur”
The Art of Fluidity by Joseph Gilland
Joseph will be presenting a talk about the fluid nature of all the elements, and discuss how he learned about fluidity, and how understanding fluidity is a key to understanding all physics and elemental effects animation.
He would also be speaking about his career, and the profound transformation from 2D animation to 3D CGI animation, and how He has eventually designed his classes to address the important classical principles of animation that must not ever be forgotten.
Polygon Pictures: 34 years of Digital Animation Shuzo John Shiota
Polygon Pictures was established in 1983, making it one of the oldest, if not the oldest existing digital animation studio in the world. Many major studios have unfortunately closed doors during this time, which underlines the difficulty of surviving in this industry, let alone thrive. Polygon Pictures have managed to do just that, having won multiple accolades along the way, including multiple Emmy Awards, and now boasts a robust crew of about 300 in Tokyo, as well as a sister studio in Malaysia.
Always transforming itself, Polygon is now the producer of popular “anime” shows such as “The Knights of Sidona”, “Ajin Demi-Humans”, and the upcoming feature film “BLAME!”, as well as taking a major role in the production of the first feature animation adaptation of Japan’s iconic character Godzilla.
Shuzo will talk about the perils and challenges the company faced ove the 34 years, as well as giving insight to the peculiar characteristics of the Japanese industry as well as with regards to the genre of anime.
Evolution of an Animation Film Maker by Vaibhav Kumaresh
Vaibhav in this talk will share his journey by showcasing a selection of his work and speaking about the process, behind the scenes and adapting to the changing nature of the industry. His talk will feature ‘Lamput’ – Vaibhav Studios’ first global product and Return of the Jungle – their maiden desi feature in production. He will weave in advice and insights to the artist and student community.
Finding Hank by John Halstead
Hank, the grumpy but lovable octopus, presented one of the biggest challenges facing the artists behind the film, Finding Dory. How do you design an octopus that can deliver an appealing performance? How do you rig a character that can squish into a hole the size of a quarter? What do you do with all of those suckers? Find out the answers to these questions and more in this talk about how the artists at Pixar brought the world of Finding Dory to the big screen.
In his talk, John will briefly cover his road to Pixar, his role on Dory and various technical departments on the film.
He would also highlight on how they found the right balance between creative ambition and technical resources, and how the technical effort on Dory compares to other films.
He would discuss how the content of the film drove the decision to adopt a new renderer. John will also explain how they needed to start thinking about shading and lighting in a more physical way and how were they able to take advantage of physical effects like refraction to enhance the storytelling visually.
He will present the recipe they used to convey the illusion of being underwater, including particulate and vegetation simulation and also discuss how they handled the water surface as a combination of procedural and simulation-based techniques and explain how light behaves in splashes, and how path tracing enables us to capture the beautiful complexity of that behaviour.
Fight with Tigers – ‘Pulimurugan’ by Murali Manohar
Pulimurugan, a Malayalam blockbuster movie released in 2016, tells the story of a man who becomes the protector of his village from the attacks of Man eating tigers, after he loses his own father in one such attack. Firefly had been roped in to create the action sequences involving the tigers. Murali will be walking the gathering through the process of shooting live tigers; then creating and animating the CG Tigers for the action sequences.
Walt Disney Animation Studios: Moana
1> Creating Oceans, Shorelines and Reefs | 2> Design and collaboration of Effects
By Dale Mayeda
“Moana” was an epic adventure spanning the vast oceans and islands of the South Pacific. With this challenge, a diverse team of collaborators across multiple disciplines set up a robust ocean pipeline that could handle hundreds of boat interaction shots which touched each department. When our characters were not out in the open ocean, dynamic shorelines were needed for every beach and crashing waves across the island reefs became an integral part of the story. Mayeda will discuss the creative and technical challenges to bringing the beauty of water to the screen.
Significance of Technology (VFX) in Storytelling by Prasad Sutar
He will be speaking about his career so far, how technology has changed the way stories are told and the possible changes in the future. He will present the behind the scenes and vfx making of blockbusters ‘Dangal’ & National Award winner ‘Shivaay’.
1> Baahubali VR | 2> Baahubali: The Conclusion by Pete Draper
Contributing to the success of the Baahubali franchise, the Baahubali VR experience utilised assets designed for the feature film along with custom material along with shooting full 360 degree video to be incorporated into a unique experience. Pete showcases the breakdowns on how these assets were utilised along with providing the ability for attendees to witness the immersive experience themselves.
Mathematics for TDs & Animators by Mark Elendt
From an understanding of elementary functions, to vector math, to transformations and beyond, this talk will be a comprehensive presentation of mathematics for TDs and Animators. Topics covered are essential math for TDs and animators and will be presented with real-world production examples.
State of the Art: How to hit a moving Target by Hugh Riley
To mark Ubisoft’s 30th anniversary, Hugh will be looking at three decades of video game art development. He will show how artists have adapted to technological advances and continually pushed the envelope of graphical excellence. He will be sharing personal observations from 30 years working with world class teams, to show the individual artist how to achieve and maintain top quality.
Walt Disney Animation Studios: Moana – Demystifying Characters by Avneet Kaur
“Moana,” is an epic adventure about an adventurous teenager who sails out on a daring mission to save her people. Inspired by the people of Pacific Islands from a long time ago, the creation of the characters of “Moana” was driven by research and team collaboration across the character asset and technology departments. Natural clothing, accessories and hair created challenging simulation needs where new tools and workflows were developed to achieve the art direction goals. Avneet will share the creative and technical challenges that were met, to bring some these amazing characters to life.
The Fate of the Furious: VFX behind the scenes by Michael Grobe
Michael gives an insight into the creation of the visual effects of the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Fast & Furious 8’. Double Negative was chosen to deliver the iconic car chases through New York, combining state of the art effects with breathtaking stunts. The talk will highlight the growing role and contribution of Indian artistry to the global world of Hollywood movies.
Unity for Film by Mathieu Muller
The talk will feature work that has already been done in Films using Unity i.e. previs, VFX etc. It cover the case study of the making of the real time rendered short film ‘Adam’. The talk will then dwell in to real time revolution on how stories can be created and told in this new paradigm and provide a glimpse in to what’s in store in the near future.
Oscar Quality VFX: Technology behind ‘The Jungle Book’ by Markus Ristich
Many custom technologies were required to handle the sheer amount of artistic work and data required for managing the 800+ artist team used on The Jungle Book. The talk will cover the need for developing these technologies internally and lessons that were learned in the process. The speakers will present how these technologies are being built into our latest tools.
Oscar Quality VFX: Technology behind ‘The Jungle Book’ by Phani Madhav
Many custom technologies were required to handle the sheer amount of artistic work and data required for managing the 800+ artist team used on The Jungle Book. The talk will cover the need for developing these technologies internally and lessons that were learned in the process. The speakerswill present how these technologies are being built into our latest tools
1> A look at 5 films with Production Designer
2> A wildly unscientific and incomplete introduction to visual design
By David James
Making of ‘Asterix: The Mansion of the Gods’ by Nicolas Trout
The presentation will cover in depth the making of on Asterix The Mansion Of Gods, unveiling the artistic challenges and technical pitfalls to be tackled when producing a first animated feature. He will also cover studio level challenges involved with growth management and multiple site production.
Method to Madness: How Shotgun powers 88 Pictures success story by Rakesh Patil and Saswat Kumar Sahoo
88 Pictures, the newest studio on the block, is creating all the right buzz with its continuing success with the DreamWorks ground breaking TV series Troll Hunters. The speakers will talk about their journey of setting up the studio Digital Production Pipeline. They will elaborate on how Autodesk Shotgun helps them meet the challenges of producing a show of scale and complexity of a full length feature film.
Bringing characters to life: Centroid Motion Capture by Parth Shah
The talk will provide an introduction to Centroid, it will cover on how motion capture can be used to enhance film making, the challenges faced by film makers when it comes to using motion capture in the film making process and how Centroid can provide solutions and equip the film makers with a tool to enhance their story telling abilities.
Developing Apps for Samsung GearVR by Nachiketa Das and Amit Yadav
The talk will lay the foundation by covering the realities of the digital world. The talk provide insights on how VR works and Samsung’s plans and initiatives for VR and then it will get in developing Apps for Gear VR followed by Q& A.
Rendering for success: How Arnold powers Assemblage Entertainment by Arjun Madhavan
