#Listerine Animation!!!
52 messages in this thread
I just saw *another* EXCELLENT listerine animation.. WOW. Those guys don't
quit. PDI did those right? Well, enough said.. It'll be a while until I'm
that good.
I hope you enjoyed this little exclamation.. I had to let it out. <grin>
JNJ
John,
I think Pixar does those. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
David
And I should add, EXCELLENT is right. "WOW" is the first thing that
came to mind when I saw it. My favorite so far.
David
>And I should add, EXCELLENT is right. "WOW" is the first thing that
came to mind when I saw it. My favorite so far.<
I find myself gaping everytime it comes on (three times tonight), and
out of breath whenever it ends. "So soon??", I ask. That animation
is pure art. The glinting of the arrow tip… The shredding of the
sign.. The trees and bushes.. wow. I don't care if it *is* only a
commercial for some stupid mouthwash, I could watch a whole 3 hour
movie about that little guy. Or even a 1/2 hour cartoon show..
<seriously grinning> I'd buy a VCR just to record each episiode.
I do know that it's a Renderman rendering.. but I'm not sure on the
creator. Whoever it is.. I want to work there. Definately top
notch.
John,
>> it's a Renderman rendering.. but I'm not sure on the creator.
The whole animation was done at Pixar, with their own software. They're
the same folks that did the "Luxo Jr." series and "Tin Toy", among others.
David
>The whole animation was done at Pixar, with their own software. They're the
same folks that did the "Luxo Jr." series and "Tin Toy", among others.<
aah, that makes sense. Do you know of a good tape that has Tin Toy,
Luxo Jr. and a bunch of other really good animations on it? (besides
the R3 demo.. <g>) I've only seen parts of these.
JNJ
John,
Your not going to see any Pixar stuff on any of the commercial
tapes or lasers like "the mind's eye" and the sort. I have a tape put
out by pixar that has "Luxo jr.", "red's dream", "Tin toy", and
"Knicknack" on it. I got it at an animation gallery in West LA called
'Name that toon'. Its a pretty cool place, if your in the area you
should drop by and see it… lots of Wil Vinton stuff (original
claymation models and sets) and even CG stuff too. If your not in the
area, you should give them a call, maybe you can order a copy of the
tape.
Cool.
Do you think you could summon up the tel # for "Name that Toon?"
Thanks.
JNJ
>>the tel # for "Name that Toon?"
Sure. (213) 653-5633
David
It's Pixar who does all the Listerine commercials. Yeah, they really
do some amazing stuff. But hey when you got SGI Reality Engines,
Watch out.. I just got to play around on one yesterday, and it was
the most incredible computer I've ever used. Real Time almost
everything.. .
>>Yeah, they really do some amazing stuff.
But hey when you got SGI Reality Engines, Watch out..
But you have to remember it's the people behind the computer that are
ultimately responsible for the animation. I'm sure there are a ton of SGIs with
Reality engines out there, but how many animations of this caliber do you see?
Not many.
David
Gotta agree with you, John. I *love* the way the liquid sloshes around in that
bottle!
-Alan
>Gotta agree with you, John. I *love* the way the liquid sloshes around in that
bottle!<
That'll be able on 3DS soon.. right? <hope> Does 3DS have Renderman support?
JNJ
Although a RIB interface for 3DS was once in the works, I believe that it was
scrapped for various reasons. No worry, though, as IPAS3 cetainly seems to be
taking off quite nicely…
I'd love to be able to control a liquid like that (in the Listerine
commercial) in 3DS. The way things are going, I get the feeling it
won't be too long…you could probably simulate such in 3DS now, but
it may be a bit of a keyframing task without some sort of K/IK
abilities.
<still gaping>
Iwannarealityengine!
No you can't have one… isn't the reality engine around 500,000.00 dallars???
Grady,
You can buy 5 Reality Engines for $500,000, and they are of limited use for
animation other than development. You still need to render through a processor
to disk one frame at a time like the rest of the world.
Funny how everyone gets a key word in their vocabulary, and equates it to
ultimate power.
If you like the animations, the credit goes to the animators and programmers at
Pixar, not the box they're using.
Paul
Yeah, but do you know how much faster they render the frames. The
company I work for is working on a really cool Colgate animation, full
of lots of particles and stuff. On an Indigo 2 with an R4000 it took
1:18 minutes a frame, and on the Onyx it only took 20 seconds. Now
thats a big difference and so you could use the extra rendering time
for increased quality. Like Ray Tracing , Refractions, Ray Traced
shadows, and maybey even Raydiosity. The guys at Pixar are really
talented and I always look forward to see whats coming next.
Did any of you guys hear about the feature length movie that Pixar is
supposedly working on.. All computer animation. Should be pretty
awesome.
There is no difference in frame rendering time unless the specific
piece of software that you are using subdivides the frame across
multiple processors. This option is ususally $6000 per processor and
until Mental Ray is imbedded into SI none of the major players
actively distribute individual frames.
As to the frame subdivision, if you're using an Onyx with 4
processors, you could get 4 Indigo2's for less money than the Onyx
and experience the same speed. If you're comparing a multiprocessor
Onyx to a single processor Indigo2 then you're not comparing apples
to apples. Additionally by saving money and utilizing multiple
machines, you not only have more stations for animators but you have
better overall performance because each processor has a dedicated
hard drive and bus. On the Onyx, a rendering that is that small will
cause massive headaches as all processors constantly try to access
the same drive at one time.
As a point of reference, we've run all of these speed test in-house
and I assure you that there is no difference other than the cost.
We've run rendering tests on the Indy, Indigo, Indigo2, Crimson, and
Onyx with Alias, SoftImage, and Wavefront.
Paul
P.S. – As to the feature lengthed movie, there are no less than 6
animation houses currently working on the same sort of projects. It
is the "in" thing for all large houses to move into next.
Actually the 24x150MHz MIPS R4400 CPU version with 2 GB of mem runs
close to $1,000,000.00. It is currently used mainly for real time
rendering VR applications. I don't think there is a way to utilize
the output for video production.
There is no difference in graphics speed between the 24 CPU RE2 and
the single processor RE2. They both run 320M TexPix, 1.6M Tmesh, and
900K TexAA.
You're inadvertantly associating the cost of the box with the
unassociated cost of the Reality Engine. List price on the reality
engine as a stand alone package is less than $50,000. As to the
current price of the 24X150 R4400 unit with the RE2. It's list price
is $634,900 with extremely good discounts available.
A new Onyx with RE2 graphics and 4XR4400 150 is listed at $199,000 and
sold for around $165,000.
You're correct in assuming that the RE2's geometry engines are
useless when it comes to rendering for tape output.
Paul:
I appreciate your SGI explanations, and now understand your strong
comments against A:M. You have worked with the real thing. I'm
curious on your continued use of PC animation tools when you have
much more powerful tools available. Many stick to PC's because of
the cost. You, apparently, do not have that limitation. Why 3DS? I
would figure that your time working on a PC would be less fruitful as
compared to working on an SGI, due to the rendering speed
differences, and lack of immediate feedback.
I am also interested in why the output of a Reality engine is no good
for video work. Is it because the quality of the rendered image is
substandard, in comparison to "slow" rendering?
JNJ
John,
We use 3D Studio because it is an extremely powerful tool that easily holds
it's own against the other packages. 3D Studio has a phenomenal renderer that
offers a large number of speed advantages. The thought that everybody needs to
raytrace every image is ridiculous. There are alot of projects that 3D Studio
handles better, faster, and cheaper than it's SGI based competitors.
All one has to do is to look at the actual quality of the renderings
of some of the SGI based packages and compare them to 3D Studio, and
it will immediately become apparent why alot of animation companies
running SGI equipment, run 3D Studio too. There are alot of projects
where the only way to get a desired result is to use 3DS. Two
projects that we are currently working on were both won using 3DS and
competing against other demo sequences from companies using SGI based
tools.
Paul
P.S. – Regarding the output of the Reality Engine, it's not that the
output is lacking or that the quality is substandard. The reason you
still have to render to disk is because the Reality Engine can be
likened to an extremely fast video card with lots of ram. It puts
great pictures on the screen, but it doesn't output a NTSC signal
that can be recorded to a VCR. It's more like a really nice video
card, not a framebuffer. It is a visualization tool for VR and
technical applications primarily. It's major use in the animation
market lies in it's ability to show "previews" and greatly speed up
production. For instance if you're adjusting lighting in a scene, you
can instantaneously spin the scene around 360 degrees and look at a
smooth shaded scene. It alleviates the need to spend hours doing test
rendering.
Before someone else jumps in here, there are obviously alot of other
advantages, but these are being used to illustrate why one still needs
to render to disk one frame at a time.
Does the RE support GetImage() or at least GetPixel()? If it does
(and I'm going to laugh at SGI, right in their face, if it doesn't)
then why can't you render to the RE, copy the image into ram and do
whatever NTSCish things you need to do to it, then save it to disk or
possibly send it to an NTSC framebuffer for recording?
>> There are alot of projects that 3D Studio handles better, faster, and
cheaper than it's SGI based competitors.
>> Two projects that we are currently working
on were both won using 3DS and competing against other demo sequences from
companies using SGI based tools.
PMJI, but…I just love hearing this kind of thing. Thanks for
putting a smile on my face this morning!
Well, what are the differences between the SGI machines, and the 3ds
software???
GRady O. Williams III
3D Studio runs on personal computers, (PC's). Silicon Graphics (SGI)
makes workstations that are more powerful cpu wise, and are often
configured with hardware specifically dedicated to 3D display. Think
of them as very expensive 3D accelerators. There are several
high-end software packages that are available for workstations, and
they tend to perform best on SGI's. These packages include
SoftImage, Alias, Wavefront, etc… .
I think what Paul was trying to say, and I agree, is that one must
pick the right tool for the right job. There are so many animations
out there that 3D Studio is extremely competetive for, even against
more expensive workstation based packages. And there are also jobs
that would be unrealistically difficult and slow to produce (if not
impossible) in 3D Studio as it stands now. Future releases and IPAS'
will probably narrow the gap. It seems that utilizing the best of a
variety of tools makes good animation and buisness sense.
Thanks for your response. It's exciting to see 3DS competing (and
even beating) SGI setups. I believe that R3's new IPAS routines, and
certainly advanced processor support (Pentiums, and hopefully even NT
supported multiprocessing machines) would cut that difference even
closer, saving us loads of money.
About the Reality Engine, I am suprised to see that SGI would not
include a quality NTSC output support for that sophisticated a "video
card", at least to allow realtime recorded previews for remote
display. It's interesting, nevertheless. I doubt I'll have one
anytime soon. <g>
John,
I'm wondering why you can't use the RealityEngine to render a frame, then copy
that frame from the RE's framebuffer, process it some, and either save it to
disk or send it to another (video) framebuffer in the same machine for
recording to tape. Heck, you could even send it across a network to an Amiga
or a PC with a PAR. This assumes the RE's API has GetImage() or something like
that.
Bailey
There are fancy scan converters for the SGI like Proton that I believe can do
this, but it's not quite the same as rendering frame by frame for some reason.
I could be wrong about the Proton and Reality Engine, but I saw one at VMI and
that's what it looked like it was doing. It was hooked up to a lowly VGXT,
though <g>.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
That sounds logical.. but who knows? <g> I'm not too familiar with all the
details of SGI machines. I do know that I wouldn't buy one if I couldn't do
something as simple as that.. it's too expensive. I'm sure there's a small
market for them. I wonder if ILM would even have need of one.
JNJ
Paul,
I went back and reread the article that I had gotten this information from.
The 1 million dollar price tag was for the Onyx RealityEngine2, 24x150MHz rake
unit, Fakespace BOOM3C, Convolotron digital audio signal processing system,
Virtual Technologies CyperGlove, Cricket 3D, Flock of Birds, Sense8
WorldToolKit SW and VLIB-SGI SW. opps <g> At this point $500,000.00 is as out
of reach as $1,000.000.00. <g>
Have you heard anything about the IPAS functions that are being developed for
using the Flock of Birds as a digitizer and for character animation.
SSH –Graphic Realities–
I know of at least one IPAS3 developer who is developing a Flock of Birds
capture system. It's not us, so I can't mention the name. I'm sure you'll see
something at Siggraph, though.
– G
Hey Gary.. when's that SIGGRAPH happening (been caught up in studies so
keeping up with all that's going on in the forum is a little difficult)?
— Steve
Siggraph starts Tuesday July 26th this year, Steve. I've got no idea what any
specific plans for it are, yet. (except that we'll be doing another demo reel,
of course)
– G
Thanks Gary (ignore my e-mail.. didn't realize you already responded in
the forum)..
— Steve
Where there's a will, there's a way… Anyhow, approxmiatley how
long does it take to camplete a 30sec. TV commercial animation, and
are the 3d objects made using 3D plotters???
I was watching an interview of the folks at Rythm and Hues (I just love that
name), and one of the animators said it takes six weeks from storyboard to
delivery. Given the extraordinary quality of the Polar Bear commercials, I
find this speed amazing.
I would guess that the Listerine commercials are similar in production
time. However, comparing the times of two different companies (Pixar
vs Rythem & Hues) is highly speculative. (and I hate to be
speculative)
> 3D plotters < Would happen to mean 3D digitizers? I have no idea
if they are used. Personally, I would avoid them due to the
unnecessarily high vertex counts they produce (for most situations).
— James —
Oh… yeah.. 3d Digitizers… well, I've heard that most
postproduction houses use them… and it is the easiest way to create
3d models…
>Personally, I would avoid them due to the unnecessarily high vertex
>counts they produce (for most situations).
What does that mean??? unnecessarily high vertex…
It means that he obviously hasn't used one of the digitizers in the
last two years.<BG>
> obviously hasn't used one in the last two years.<BG> <
Very true! I guess the newer ones have variable resolutions, mesh
optimization, and lots of red buttons <G>. Not to mention I do not
have the $$ to buy one of my own anyway! (Can I barrow yours? I
have a telephone cord I want to scan in . . . <G>)
The scanner we're utilizing with our current project is a Cyberware
scanner. It scans at a phenomenally high resolution and
simultaneously captures texture map information in 24 bit color. It
has an AI program built into it, so it will then reduce the polygon
count by up to 99%, giving you a completely optimized mesh that
couldn't be created as well regardless of who your modeller was.
Scanning a 3 foot object takes all of 20 seconds including a complete
texture map. It uses different lasers simultaneously, one for object
mesh and the other for color. Including running the optimization
software it takes approximately 30 minutes from start to finish to
scan virtually any object. We just finished scanning human heads and
the scanner does such a phenomenal job with texture mapping that it
even picks up facial hair that your razor missed.
As to winning or losing jobs, we did a test scanning a model that took
3 weeks to build by hand without texture mapping. To produce a better
model with the scanner including texture mapping and mesh
optimization took 14 minutes.
You can pick up one yourself for around $115,000 including computer
controlled platform. Or if you have an object you want scanned, we'll
work out a price for you.<G> Did I mention that you still need to buy
the SGI workstation to hook it to?
Paul
Like Paul said, I have not used one lately . . . But to answer your
question, more verticies means slower renderings . . . means more
time . . . means lost bids to faster competion . . . (on and on).
No, I'm pretty sure you can get a Indigo 2 for 99,000 and then a
reality engine for another 99,000. Not, like I have 200,000 dollars
lying around.But it sure would be nice…
An Indigo2 fully loaded goes for less than $45,000 with Irix 5.2,
R4400 150, 128 megs of ram, 2 gig HD, Extreme Graphics and 19 inch
monitor. The RE subset won't run on an Indigo2 but it's cost is also
under $50,000.
The Indigo 2 is definitely WAAAY less than $99,000. People are really
blowing the cost of SGI's out of proportion on this forum. I'm not
sure what the current cost with a good 3D display config is, but it's
less than half that as far as I remember.
John,
FYI, Indog2 systems (with monitor and drive) start at a list of
$24,500, for the XL, with the Extreme series starting @ $40k.
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
>>Indog2<< – I've got one of those! His name is Riccochet <g>.
re: Indigo2 24k >
Thanks, thats what I figured, but with a fully loaded box it would run
around $45k, right?