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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.05 - AUGUST 2000
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Is There Life Beyond Flash? David B. Williams For the kind of high-end, multiple episode animation projects that are Visionary Media's hallmark, 3D tools are playing a growing role in our Flash production process. The creation of 3D models benefits us in two main ways: 1) For props and/or backgrounds (and even characters) that will play a large role over the course of several episodes, 3D models have a "create once and use often" advantage. Once a 3D model is created, multiple views and sequences can be imported into Flash, saving our art staff valuable drawing time, and enhancing the aesthetic continuity from view to view. 2) A sequence generated with the aid of 3D tools can help us to throttle up its overall "Wow!" factor. In our example, the stages of a rocket entering orbit drop away toward Earth, but as they fall, their orientations shift, subtly enhancing the realism of the shot. To achieve these effects, we utilize a variety of tools, including 3D Studio Max for modeling, and Vecta and Swifty 3D for exporting 3D models to vector files ready for Flash. Adobe Illustrator also plays an important role in the layout of various screens.
Sound production plays a central role, especially since Visionary produces all original music for its programming. Sound tools can also help to optimise dialog tracks, keeping file sizes to a minimum while retaining clarity. We employ a wide array of software, including: Digital Performer with Waves Shell for sequencing, Sound Edit 16 and Deck for splicing and batch processing, Unity DS1 for midi sample playback, Steinberg's B.Box for groove creation, Sound Foundries Acid for music loop production and QBase. Kevin Bermeister Brilliant Digital Entertainment has created an introductory b3d toolset for creating interactive 3D animation content that may be streamed over the Internet. Tools include a b3d Exporter plug-in for 3D Studio Max, Maya and Lightwave, two versions of an authoring tool called b3d Studio and a Digital Projector for real-time 3D playback. b3d Studio allows animators to import a variety of media types into a timeline and then "build" an interactive animation that may be streamed in real-time. Brilliant Digital’s Superman and KISS Immortals series on portals such as Entertaindom and Yahoo are referred to as "Multipath Movies," a term used to describe interactive movies that include user-selected subplots. Movies can be played in a pop-up Digital Projector that also plays Flash, AVI, MPEG and HTML. Although Multipath Movies are Brilliant Digital’s most visible projects on the Web, the b3d platform is actually a pervasive 3D format that can be used to deliver a wide variety of interactive content. The compression and delivery engine built into the b3d platform is very versatile and may be used to create virtual shopping malls, educational programming, waltkthroughs and other content. Without advanced programming or even scripting, content developers and artists who use 3D Studio Max, Maya and Lightwave will be able to export their animations for assembly in b3d Studio. Richard Fenton One of the things that we’re doing here at Spot Box is trying to anticipate where animation and entertainment are going on the Internet. This means forecasting what technologies will become prevalent. In addition to Flash, we use LiveStage Pro to create QuickTime Wired Sprites. This technology allows us the flexibility to do some things that we cannot do as well in Flash, such as the ability to handle multiple media types, and the ability to build 2D sprite games that have special effects like fire, or clouds. In addition to QuickTime Wired Sprites, we are also using Pulse 3D to create interactive 3D content. For us, the key advantage of Pulse 3D over other 3D technologies designed for the Internet is its character animation features. We are also investigating software that allows us to take these experiences outside of the Internet browser. One such development tool that has caught our attention is iShell. With iShell, we can create immersive custom environments that exist outside of the standard Internet browser. We can also use iShell to do some things that would otherwise be difficult. In iShell, we can create our content in any of several formats (Flash, QuickTime, Pulse3D, etc.), and those media types can then communicate with each other. For instance, we can have a Pulse 3D animated object communicate with and control a QuickTime movie or vice versa.
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