Maya Provides Core 3D Animation Technology for Rings Trilogy
Alias' Maya software played a central role in the development of Gollum, Shelob, the Battle of Pelennor Fields and the Witch King's death in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING. In fact, Maya has been the core 3D animation software used in all three RINGS films created by Weta Digital and distributed by New Line Cinema. The Oscar award-winning software has allowed the visual effects and animation team at Weta Digital to produce 1,500 CG effects in the last installment of the trilogy, as well as develop the photoreal animation performances of Gollum and the other digital characters.
"The incredibly talented staff at Weta Digital have logged many hours on our Maya software in order to make Gollum's performance, and that of the other digital characters, so completely engaging," explained Bob Bennett, gm of product management, Alias. "Our Custom Development Center team was also able to lend their support, developing custom software tools that enabled the Weta team to spend more time thinking about their art, and less time worrying about the technology behind it."
Added Weta Digital cto Scott Houston: "We were looking to do things that had never been done in the history of the motion picture industry: hundreds of thousands of soldiers for the Battle of Pelennor Fields scene and the incredibly life-like animations of Shelob and Gollum. Plus, there was the pure volume of effects shots we had to deliver: 1,500 as opposed to 500 for the first film. To meet these challenges we needed business partners like Alias who really understood our requirements and were able to deliver solutions. I view Alias as much more than simply a software vendor. Not only has the company provided us with Maya – the core 3D animation technology for the trilogy – they have also delivered custom software that has enabled us to bring Peter Jackson's vision to life, while meeting our deadlines. I don't think THE RETURN OF THE KING would have had the same level of digital effects without Alias technology."
Randall William Cook, two-time Oscar award-winner for his work on the first two movies of the series and animation designer/supervisor at Weta Digital, was involved in the decision to commit to Maya software from the beginning. "Maya entered the picture very early on," remembered Cook. "I was shown several selections of software and had the chance to test drive them. Based upon my experience in animation, I found Maya to be the most comfortable interface and the technical team could get into the software to customize the code – we chose Maya and never looked back.
"Between THE TWO TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING, we added 50% more digital artists. And while many of our artists had experience working with Maya software, some were traditional 2D cel animators with no knowledge of 3D animation. In order to facilitate workflow for the animators, we built an enormous scene management system through Maya, using the software's MEL (Maya Embedded Language) scripting abilities. Using this system, the animators had merely to click on a tab in the Maya interface to bring up crucial scene information from other departments: including camera information, motion capture data, live-action plate files and sound files."
When it came to animating characters, the team took this Maya-based animation pipeline a step further. Jason Schleifer, senior animator/creature technical director at Weta Digital, set up a procedural puppet system in Maya with his team whereby characters could be animated via a set of simple controls and sliders. For the complex, highly emotive Gollum, a set of 135 controls was put in place for his face alone. "This allowed us to really push Gollum as a character," Schleifer explained. "You really see this come through in the movie during the scene where Gollum is lying on the ground sleeping. Although he's asleep and hardly moving, you can see an internal struggle taking place as you look at his face. It's one of the hardest things in the world to animate a character that is not moving. Yet in this scene, you get a sense of the intensity of Gollum's anguish."
"The incredibly talented staff at Weta Digital have logged many hours on our Maya software in order to make Gollum's performance, and that of the other digital characters, so completely engaging," explained Bob Bennett, gm of product management, Alias. "Our Custom Development Center team was also able to lend their support, developing custom software tools that enabled the Weta team to spend more time thinking about their art, and less time worrying about the technology behind it."
Added Weta Digital cto Scott Houston: "We were looking to do things that had never been done in the history of the motion picture industry: hundreds of thousands of soldiers for the Battle of Pelennor Fields scene and the incredibly life-like animations of Shelob and Gollum. Plus, there was the pure volume of effects shots we had to deliver: 1,500 as opposed to 500 for the first film. To meet these challenges we needed business partners like Alias who really understood our requirements and were able to deliver solutions. I view Alias as much more than simply a software vendor. Not only has the company provided us with Maya – the core 3D animation technology for the trilogy – they have also delivered custom software that has enabled us to bring Peter Jackson's vision to life, while meeting our deadlines. I don't think THE RETURN OF THE KING would have had the same level of digital effects without Alias technology."
Randall William Cook, two-time Oscar award-winner for his work on the first two movies of the series and animation designer/supervisor at Weta Digital, was involved in the decision to commit to Maya software from the beginning. "Maya entered the picture very early on," remembered Cook. "I was shown several selections of software and had the chance to test drive them. Based upon my experience in animation, I found Maya to be the most comfortable interface and the technical team could get into the software to customize the code – we chose Maya and never looked back.
"Between THE TWO TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING, we added 50% more digital artists. And while many of our artists had experience working with Maya software, some were traditional 2D cel animators with no knowledge of 3D animation. In order to facilitate workflow for the animators, we built an enormous scene management system through Maya, using the software's MEL (Maya Embedded Language) scripting abilities. Using this system, the animators had merely to click on a tab in the Maya interface to bring up crucial scene information from other departments: including camera information, motion capture data, live-action plate files and sound files."
When it came to animating characters, the team took this Maya-based animation pipeline a step further. Jason Schleifer, senior animator/creature technical director at Weta Digital, set up a procedural puppet system in Maya with his team whereby characters could be animated via a set of simple controls and sliders. For the complex, highly emotive Gollum, a set of 135 controls was put in place for his face alone. "This allowed us to really push Gollum as a character," Schleifer explained. "You really see this come through in the movie during the scene where Gollum is lying on the ground sleeping. Although he's asleep and hardly moving, you can see an internal struggle taking place as you look at his face. It's one of the hardest things in the world to animate a character that is not moving. Yet in this scene, you get a sense of the intensity of Gollum's anguish."
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