Oddworld Inhabitants president and creative director Lorne Lanning.

“Yet hardware rendering technology has advanced tremendously, with companies like NVIDIA and ATI. Those advancements have been utilized by the game industry, which is in the battle for efficiency every day. That has produced different approaches to computer graphics than the traditional pre-rendered world has done — like using A.I. so that characters know how to navigate their worlds on their own instead of having to be keyframed for each shot. We see that technology evolving in interesting ways.”

The Machinima Movement
One of the most interesting developments Lanning cites is Machinima, which he characterizes as a kind of virtual filmmaking environment. “Machinima is not as much a technology as a genre of game engines producing linear footage. I'm sure that — just like virtual reality — there will be people claiming that they own it. However, no one does.”

To illustrate how Machinima might apply to his company, Lanning offers, “Let's say Oddworld wanted to do a 90-minute, direct-to-DVD movie. If we wanted to do it with pre-rendered CG, we’d probably be looking at a $30 million-dollar budget, even with very aggressive economics. If instead we went the Machinima route, and ported it to the PC and took advantage of 2MB RAM for texture mapping instead of 64MB, then we could do 90 minutes for $6 million. And what would come out of that would be far more epic than anyone would expect. We could generate enough quality for HD.

“This also lends itself to producing a series. If the first 90-minute piece using Machinima cost us $6 million, the second one becomes a serial. It’s like having the sets built for a TV show. And the sound cues are in the sampler for the audio guys. We know what this show is, and now we’re running episode after episode. For the first one you're paying to build all the databases. The second one is derivative. In 10 years, it will be the same database, except it will be realtime, and it will be used for film.” (More information about Machinima can be found at www.Machinima.org.)

The Creative Possibilities
Lanning thinks that “What’s interesting about the Machinima approach is that once those databases are in that world, a potential director can sit with someone who’s interfacing the system and prove if they've ‘got it’ or not. And they can prove it in a day — not in a month or three months. If a director has it in him to know where to put the camera and how to time the action and build tension, he can do it with the databases that exist.”

With increased detail and Machinima technology, the potential of gaming and cinema is unlimited.

Lanning, who previously worked at Rhythm & Hues before launching Oddworld with R&H executive Sherry McKenna, thinks that the impact of working more interactively will be profound. "To be a computer animation director takes a lot of understanding. Typically, in the history of CG, being a director of the medium has taken precedence over just being a great director, because the medium is so challenging. There's so much you have to know in order to direct it well."

CG directors also have been constrained thus far by the high costs involved in rendering — and re-rendering, when necessary — in conventional CG production. “I’ve seen directors say, ‘I just want the character to lean over for another second so that we feel the tension!’ And the producer replies: ‘You want another second? That‘s another week. Make your choice — you want another second on this scene or do you want that bathroom scene?’”

Lanning hopes that the development of realtime animation tools will help liberate artists to think more about story and character and less about technology. “I’m excited about getting into what I feel is the new emerging virtual film culture. The more we head to the future, the more we’ll be thinking about integrating realtime and pre-rendered assets. We'll have to the tools to get performances out of characters fluidly in real time. Of course, in the world of linear entertainment, no one cares how you've made your imagery — it had just better be great!”

Ellen Wolff is a Southern California-based writer whose articles have appeared in publications such as Daily Variety, Millimeter, Animation Magazine, Video Systems and the Website CreativePlanet.com. Her areas of special interest are computer animation and digital visual effects.