Avatar was great! - Page 2 - Simply Maya User Community

# 16 19-12-2009 , 10:27 PM

Subscriber
Join Date: Jun 2004

Location: Nottingham

Posts: 344

check out this thread:

https://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthr...5&page=1&pp=15

Quote

# 17 19-12-2009 , 11:42 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

See what I mean with the facial xpressions, these were early on in the project too...'outstanding!!' just to quote jake from Avatar!

strange though...I did a character for my Outlaws Tales novel a while back, he looked 'similar' - All blue skinny and tall with Yellow eyes......

Jay

Quote

# 18 20-12-2009 , 12:09 AM

Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

Jake: How will I know he has chosen me?

Ateri: He will try to kill you!

Jake: Outstanding!

LOL yes that was a great line Jay

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Quote

# 19 20-12-2009 , 12:36 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Dec 2007

Location: NZ

Posts: 3,125

stwert, dango, it's supposidly an 8 hour drive from auckland to wellington, and then there's the time it takes to get to the studio, which since i dont' know where it is or know wellington too well it'll probably take me another 2 hours including the time for when i get lost!

Jay (or anyone else), how do they sculpt the expressions in zbrush and then have it animated?

that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Quote

# 20 20-12-2009 , 01:57 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: May 2004

Location: Bowling Green. Kentucky U.S.A.

Posts: 810

Did anyone see the sci channel show night before last called " Science of the movies"...its a series they do, this time they did a thing on creating a real life sized bumble bee, and some other stuff....but the 'artical' i was most interested in was where they used a maya motioncapture plugin and a 3rd party video capture software ( cant for the life of me remember the names, i was half asleep when watching) then they imaged the hosts face, converted it to a 3d model of a head in maya, started recording him capturing his facial expressions within their software "Motion capture, something" ) places some locators on his eyes, and mouth and it instantly started to translate to the model of his face in maya, No blend shapes, Nothing ...just direct conversion ...was amazing...
I don't know if its the same software they used for avatar or not, Jay Does that sound familiar to what you've heard?..

Non the less, it was great to watch, I highly recommend it, just look for the words "Bumblebee" in the info for the show " science of the movies" and you'll see the part i'm talking about in that episode, about half way through.

G-man

Follow My Business
On The Web!
Or
On Facebook!

Quote

# 21 20-12-2009 , 07:41 AM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

Originally posted by Chirone
stwert, dango, it's supposidly an 8 hour drive from auckland to wellington, and then there's the time it takes to get to the studio, which since i dont' know where it is or know wellington too well it'll probably take me another 2 hours including the time for when i get lost!

Jay (or anyone else), how do they sculpt the expressions in zbrush and then have it animated?

Originally Posted by

Shame about the long distance...
If I read the thread right, the sculpted expressions were mainly proof of concepts (proofs of concept??)

-stwert

Website - Blog - YouTube - Vimeo - Facebook - Twitter

-->How to Effectively Ask Questions on Forums<--

Quote

# 22 20-12-2009 , 07:43 AM

Subscriber
Join Date: Dec 2007

Location: NZ

Posts: 3,125

'proof of concepts' is right since i think it's technically one word.
(i din't read the thread... i just looked at the pretty pictures....... shame on me...)

Quote

# 23 20-12-2009 , 12:44 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

I read that too with the sculpts....

But with regard to facial animation I have read that it was a bit of keyframe and also mo-cap.

with regard to facial animation via zbrush models its pretty straight forward as you just create the shapes as normal in maya then get them into Zbrush/Mudbox and sculpt and extract the dismap.

Now theres a couple of ways to do the actual animation of the expressions. You could for each expression key the dismaps in and out per expression as needed, also create the shapes with meshes with a manageable topology (not zillions of polys) and then that can have say certain expressions/phonemes and then have a system thats setup using a muscle muscle rig, these at any point in the process can be utilised with the mocap data create a more believable look.

I also know that the cast of Avatar did also have cameras strapped to their heads, along with the capture dots so the animators had greater reference to match the actor instead of using a made up more generic set of expressions to use, keeping the cg characters closer to the real life counterparts.

Cheers
Jay

Quote

# 24 20-12-2009 , 12:56 PM

Moderator
Join Date: May 2005

Location: Manchester Uk

Posts: 6,300

Cool info Jay.

Think I might see how far I can get with the application, just to see.

I use MATLAB/Simulink all the time for image processing for machine learning (to auto classify subjects using statistical methods) as well as mocap equipment for the gathering of human data, pretty much what there asking for in a researcher.

I'm going to be looking forward to seeing Avatar.

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

Quote

# 25 20-12-2009 , 01:18 PM

Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

They spent years developing an entirely new muscle system and motion capture system for this movie. They have renamed the facial motion capture system the "emotion" capture system. There was a write up in the I read on line some where.

I also saw on TV where they showed the actual live performance footage with the actors in their motion capture gear and funny looking beanies with rubber animal ears side by side with the final CG footage to show just how amazingly close the resulting animated footage was to the actual live performance.

It was amazing.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 24-12-2009 at 12:14 AM.

Quote

# 26 20-12-2009 , 08:56 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2009

Location: Slovenia

Posts: 75

This movie was one of the greatest i've seen. If I'll ever be able to make artwork such as that, that'll mean a win in life to me.

Quote

# 27 20-12-2009 , 10:12 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

character animation stats care of 3d world:

80:20 split between full body mo cap

60:40 facial animation, mocap and keyframe

the muscle software is custom built to obtain a far more realistic skin deformatiom.

Custom facial Animation Software developed, based on Facial Action coding System (FACS)

For those who know their comping software, it was a custom built version of Shake.

Also this really amazed me, theres hardly any 2d work in the film as well, meaning the use of matte paintings was a next to nothing because of the 3d stereo cameras, it was all 3d,. The foliage was created via a procedural software, and the larger trees had in excess of 1.2 million polys.

Recapping back to what I said earlier about the facial set up (modelwise) they actually did everything in poly with NO dismaps. Each wrinkle was place in the geometry for more control when it came to squash the skin instead of the dissolving on and off with the dismaps.

my quote was:

also create the shapes with meshes with a manageable topology (not zillions of polys)

Originally Posted by

so I was pretty much there with that and then the added use of their new muscle stuff.

The digital sculpt were done in Mudbox, as opposed to the early stuff being done in Zbrush. Well it looks to me like Jim Cameron has now gone and done what George Lucas did with the original Star Wars and thats throw down the gauntlet and set a new standard....top draw!!

Jay

Quote

# 28 23-12-2009 , 11:00 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

Hey Ladies n gents

I actually managed to get the new January 2010 Cinefex mag today here in the UK. Its pretty much choc full of Avatar goodies, and really worth getting even for the pretty pics!! Apparently Siggy Weaver was the hardest Avatar to make because her nose in real life is quite small compared to the other actors which having bigger noses was easier to match to the Avatar....anyway check it out....

Forbidden Planet wont have until the new year apparently as I tried them yesterday. But I managed to get it at The Cinema Store near Leicester Square Tube station, its about a 2minute walk from there.

Heres a link /map https://maps.google.com/maps?rls=com....ed=0CB8QnwIwBA

also if anyone is in the area in the new year and fancies lunch gimme a shout, Im usually around, Im just up in Sheraton Street at Cinesite which is off the infamous Waldour Street. throw me a mail and we can sort something out...

cheers
Jay

Quote