SIGGRAPH 2013: Day 3

The Exhibition Floor and Job Fair opening were met with excitement from attendees. If you didn’t get a chance to visit them today, don’t worry. Both events will be open until the conference closes on Thursday so you can still grab some swag and meet some people.

The production sessions were particular crowd favorites and there were no shortage of them today. Be sure to check out tomorrow’s Iron Man 3 production session, because we hear that the Iron Man suits will be making an appearance. Come early to make sure you get a great seat!

The night continued with another presentation of the Electronic Theater and Real-Time Live!, which was immediately followed by “Cut&Paste: Characterized @ SIGGRAPH.” They hosted “PIXEL PLAYOFF,” a fast design throw down where three teams of two designers each competed in a final round of design to complete a character live onstage. 

Here are some of the day’s highlights…

CAF Production Session: ‘Cancel the Apocalypse’ Industrial Light & Magic Presents: The Visual Effects of “Pacific Rim”

“Cancel the Apocalypse” started with a sampling of “Pacific Rim” in 3D before discussing the motif of monsters versus robots and how that ties to the movie. The panel then talked about how to believably convey scale when animating the Jaegers and Kaijus and how they used large metal items such as ships and submarines as reference for the Jaegers. Each Jaeger was created to have a distinctive and different personality that was reflected in their walk and design. Also, the Kaijus were all designed differently to suit the specific function they each served, such as being created to knock down city walls.

CAF Production Session: Sony Pictures Imageworks Presents: Take a Journey Down the Yellow Brick Road

This session was divided into sections that discussed the environments, the effects animation and the character animation in the movie “Oz: The Great and Powerful.” Things kicked off with the environments and how they created a world that is three times the size of Yellowstone Park for Oz. Also, they wanted Oz to look different in this film than it does in the original and designed the world with that in mind. Design choices like this in addition to the decision to shoot entirely on stages were made early. In fact, everything was created on set or in postproduction with visual effects.

In regards to the effects animation, many types of effects were created for Oz. Examples included the weather in addition to how each witch’s magic was represented differently. The last topic they touched on was the character animation of Finley, the flying monkey, and China Doll. The voice talent was filmed so that their expressions could be used when animating the characters. In addition, the voice talent for these two characters were on set, so that they could provide real time reactions to the on the screen talent so they had the option of adlibbing.

CAF Production Session: Warner Brothers Presents the VFX for “Man of Steel”

The session brought together 5 animators from different studios to discuss their studio’s work on “Man of Steel.” Weta Digital touched on the design of Krypton and how there are no obvious straight lines, while ScanLine VFX discussed how they created the oil rig sequence and the “tornado madness” sequence. Next, LookFX talked about the bus crash sequence and MPC explained how they created the Smallville battle. The session concluded with Double Negative explaining how they built Metropolis.

CAF Production Session: Industrial Light & Magic Presents: The Visual Effects of “Star Trek Into Darkness”

Attendees lined up for this production session, which started with an introduction of the visual style that was established in the 2009 “Star Trek.” The panelists broke the session into case studies that showed some of the sequences they put together. The case studies were handled a little differently though in that they were treated more like a conversation where each panelist talked about their contributions. The case studies touched on the volcano chase scene and the crash sequence.

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