Production Pipeline Part A

Pre-Production.

ESTABLISHING RULES

my understanding of this is that pre production is about the work done on product that must be complete before the full scale commencement.

"The steps necessary to prepare a film for production, locations, actors, staff must be decided on and then further details such as props, costumes and lighting."

Its a movie term that is used to describe the phase of planning and establishing rules of a concept; Be it for a game or animated film. however, when I say ‘rules’ I don’t mean that these are set in stone and must be abided by, later down the pipeline. no, what these rules begin to do is set the foundation and if performed correctly, make the pipeline workflow a lot smoother.

What is also interesting about Pre-production is that it’s slightly different for every studio. After watching a talk by Greg Foertsch, i found a few cool points that he addressed on what the objective of pre production was for Xcom enemy unknown. (between 1:10-6:00 for the video)

Some common mistakes that can occur can

be;

- Not defining the requirements to enter production.

- Considering presentation (where is the camera going to be orientated. How is the player going to move, play?)

-Focusing on small self contained items rather than systems.

why these are important to consider while in pre production is without any of this planning done and 'rules' set in place, the people who need to model a character or asset will be running with free reigns, often missing the initial concept of the art director and time will be mis used as the mistake must be amended.

3D modeling

Virtual sculpting

It is using a software to create a virtual three dimensional model of a physical object that can either be descibed as hard surfaced or organic. A model could be generated through a variety of tools and approaches; commonly through the manipulation of polygons (polygons is just another word for faces), edges and vertices (corners). In programs such as Zbrush, 3DS Max and blender.

The video provides an example of organic modelling, which is usually for characters, why? Well its easier to sculpt the different muscle areas and add sections of hair manually in Zbrush. If a modeller was given an asset to make and it was a hard surface such as a car or wooden crate. It would make more sense to use Maya or 3ds max as the programs are more accommodating for precise modelling and will become easier in maintaining a manageable poly count as zbrush tends to create an extensive amount of surfaces depending on the approach to sculpting.

UV Mapping

UV’S are two dimensional texture coordinates with vertex component information for polygonal and subdivision surface meshes. They are important because they provide a connection between the surface mesh and how the image texture gets mapped onto the surface mesh.

If textures are applied to a polygon or subdivision surfaces that do not possess UV texture coordinates, the textures will not render.

Texturing and shaders

Texturing can either be hand painted or photograph based, hand painting will take longer and usually consume to much time on a tight schedule so its not recommended. without this step, the models will just continue to look like grey clay. What this does is tell the 3d application your using what material something is going to be made of and in turn what kind of effect should be seen to reflect that.

The key to mastering shading will be one ones knowledge of how light operates in reality; things like reflection, transparency and so on.

1:30- 1:36 - is a nice example of shading being applied to a scene.

textures for sombre being added to the model.

Rigging

it can be like giving the model skeleton to be able to later puppeteer. the person who is rigging the now made 3d model will need these bones created with an understanding of deformation. What can happen when the joints and textures applied to the surface can be influenced by the bones, causing the texture to loose its realistic appearance if the bone does not support the action to be completed. an example to explain this further is through the images that was taken from Blizzard's

production of Overwatch. The models shown is of the characters facial set up and showing us where rigging would be focused more, these lines and focal point change though based on the facial structure. As the animators understand that Winston (the image above) would not animate the same when speaking or smiling in comparison to

the image to the left.

Animation

This step of the pipeline is why so many people get into 3d graphics in the first place. it is the moving/puppeteering of the character on a surface level. This can be broken down into acting, staging, timing, etc. The role of the animator during this stage is to bring the character to life. The most common form of animation is accomplished through the act of setting keyframes at speci c intervals throughout the timeline present in a given scene.

"Animation is the process of adding movement to the 3d objects in your scene that are actors in the environment. Most commonly objects that are animated are characters; however, they can also be part of the scenery such as trees swaying in the breeze, the 3d camera, or anything else that requires movement on the screen. Animation is accomplished through the use of simulations, system for an object known as an armature."

(Making Sense of the 3d Production Pipeline–Blender Unleashed 2018 24/49)

Why this stage is important in the pipeline is that it is what the previous stages have been working towards, creating a product that is tangible and can be one day sold to consumers in its intended platform. ie: game or movie.

Lighting

In animation, the lighting artist is concerned with providing the evidence of light sources depicted in the scene; that may be light cast from lamps, street lights, or natural outdoor lighting.

why? well to create environments in the 3d software that correspond with realistic applications of the world of the film. its about creatively manipulating qualities like light color, intensity, and angle. In relation to the characters and objects in the scene, the lighting artist uses the shader settings implemented by the shading and texture artists to properly integrate the result of qualities like object reflectivity, light scatter, and the appearance of wet surfaces.

Rendering

this is the step where all the work in the pipeline pays off, its the final shaded images of your environment. however, it is something that takes time and as such; Things like the dimensions of your rendered image, the amount of motion blur applied to animated objects, the color correction applied to the render, and small tweaks to optimize the speed at which a scene is rendered.

Data from a scene is taken and the 3d program attempts to accurately simulate the lighting and shading from the point of view of the camera back to a 2d image onto the screen. In an animation multiple images are rendered, ordered sequentially, and then played back to create movement on the screen.

compositing

Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene.

("Compositing", 2018)

references

The Art of Pre-Production. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved 12 February 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2u4jhpZkTQ

ZBrush - Speed Sculpting with Danny Mac - #ZBrushLIVE #artstation. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved 19 February 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6Er_hpRfo

Making Of Blizzard Overwatch Shorts. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved 16 February 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml1TCy7vykw

Making Of Blizzard Overwatch Shorts. (2018). YouTube. Retrieved 16 February 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml1TCy7vykw

Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. (2018). Pellacini.di.uniroma1.it. Retrieved 16 February 2018, from http://pellacini.di.uniroma1.it/teaching/projects10/lectures/01_pipeline.pdf

Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. (2018). Dkrikun.files.wordpress.com. Retrieved 1 March 2018, from https://dkrikun.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/making-sense-of-the-3d-production-pipeline-e28093-blender-unleashed.pdf

Compositing. (2018). En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositing

Lighting Artist. (2018). Get In Media. Retrieved 2 March 2018, from http://getinmedia.com/careers/lighting-artist-film