VisionArt

Last updated
VisionArt color logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford. VisionArt color logo.jpg
VisionArt color logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford.
VisionArt logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford. VisionArt Logo.jpg
VisionArt logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford.
VisionArt diamond logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford. VA diamond v2.jpg
VisionArt diamond logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford.
FutureLight color logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford. Futurelightcolor.jpg
FutureLight color logo, designed by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford.
Zeiss Rec Elta RL-S laser survey head used by VisionArt for projects such as Godzilla (1998). VisionArt Zeiss 1.JPG
Zeiss Rec Elta RL-S laser survey head used by VisionArt for projects such as Godzilla (1998).

VisionArt Design & Animation was a motion picture and television visual effects company, founded in the 1980s by David Rose and Todd Hess. Though originally a small Orange County company working primarily on cable TV advertisements and flying logos, VisionArt moved to Santa Monica in 1992, winning its first major effects work with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The studio originated in Santa Ana, California, later moved to Santa Monica, California, and closed its doors in 2000. (VisionArt is sometimes incorrectly cited as Vision Art or Vision Arts.)

Contents

Star Trek (1993–1999)

Star Trek: The Next Generation – 3D Shuttle (1993)

The first CGI ship ever used in the Star Trek franchise was created by Dennis Blakey and Dorene Haver. It was a 3D computer model of the "Runabout" shuttle for Star Trek: The Next Generation . Previously, Star Trek had exclusively used physical models, which at the time were composited by Adam Howard and Steve Scott at Digital Magic. VisionArt's 3D model of the Runabout was primarily used for the stretching effect when it jumped to warp.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Odo Morphs (1993–1999)

Dennis Blakey, who headed the initial development and effects work for the shape-shifting character Odo, brought VisionArt its first prime-time Emmy Award for the pilot and initial episodes. Beginning with season 1, episode 11 "Vortex," Odo morphs were animated by Ted Fay, with Blakey generating the intermediate blobular "goo" state of the shape-shifting character, and Dorene Haver providing the compositing. After Blakey's departure, Odo's "goo" was primarily animated by Carl Hooper and Daniel Kramer, with later Odo morphs animated by Richard Cook.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – 3D Starships (1993–1997)

The USS Defiant was the first full-fledged starship in the Star Trek franchise to have a CGI model used in regular production. It was first built and animated by Daniel Kramer and Carl Hooper. The CGI Defiant was featured heavily in the Season 4 episode Starship Down , where it battled a CGI Jem'Hadar ship, designed by Robert Tom and built by Hooper, in a CGI gas giant's atmosphere. [1] The probe in Starship Down was built by Vinh Le, with Ben Hawkins also providing animation. The gas giant atmosphere was created by Rob Bredow and Pete Shinners using Sparky, a proprietary particle system developed by VisionArt. [1] A further contribution came in season five, with the addition of 3D model of the Jem'Hadar battle cruiser built by Tony Sansalone.

Star Trek: Voyager (1995)

VisionArt won another Emmy Award for Best Individual Achievement in Effects for their work on Caretaker , the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Barry Safley created 3D animation for the episode's alien creature, which was revealed to have been hiding in the form of a young girl. Ted Fay animated the reveal, with compositing by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford.

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

VisionArt created a 3D Vulcan starship for Star Trek: First Contact. The craft was animated and built by a team led by Daniel Kramer and Carl Hooper, with textures by Robert Tom and composting by Bethany Berndt-Shackelford. The team included Todd Boyce, Rick Cook, Celine Jackson, Jeff Pierce, and others. [2]

Lois & Clark (1993)

VisionArt pioneered the use of full-body human 3D animation for the pilot of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman for which Rob Bredow, Ted Fay, Carl Hooper, Daniel Kramer, and Pete Shinners, demonstrated the seamless morphing between a human actor and a photorealistic CGI model of the actor. [3] [4]

Northern Exposure (1993/1994)

In 1993, Ted Fay created the first photorealistic talking dog for Northern Exposure , [4] [5] a technology that was further advanced for the film version of Dr. Dolittle . [6] The talking dog was created for season 5, episode 12 entitled Mr. Sandman, which aired January 10, 1994. "The CBS hit series is known for its offbeat scripts and quirky guests, and next week's episode is no exception," observed E! News Daily's Bianca Ferrare, adding "The dog talking here in fluent French-Canadian is a figment of the character's imagination, but the process of giving the dog life is the brainstorm of animators at VisionArt" [5] "Talking animals are nothing new, by 'Mr. Ed' this isn't," added Ferrare. [5] "With 'Mr. Ed' you have the horse that you fed the peanut butter," noted animator Ted Fay, "which they did actually with the dog, but it wasn't at all convincing." [5] "Recent CGI attempts, on the other hand, have offered the believability of being able to sync the mouth positions with dialogue, but at the expense of the photorealism." [4] VisionArt had developed a reputation for "pushing the envelope" with CGI and morphing techniques, and the producers of Northern Exposure were "ecstatic" with the results. [4] The 2D animation approach used a specially customized version of Elastic Reality, a morphing software that VisionArt had agreed to co-develop with ASDG in exchange for not developing their system in-house and having a site license in perpetuity, with a six-month exclusive on features contributed by VisionArt. Paul Miller, the lead developer for the Silicon Graphics version of Elastic Reality, provided Fay with new features on the afternoon that he requested them, allowing for rapid innovation of a first-of-a-kind approach on an episodic television schedule. [4] Elastic Reality was later sold to Avid Technology.

Independence Day (1996)

VisionArt's claim to fame on the big screen was arguably its creation of the majority of the dogfight sequences for Independence Day , which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. [7] Sparky, a dynamics/simulation software developed by Rob Bredow, director of research and development, along with Pete Shinners, was heavily expanded to provide for near-real-time animation of large groups of F-18 jet fighters, alien attackers, missiles, smoke trailers, shields, etc. [3] While previous shots of similar complexity animated by other means had taken about one month each, Sparky was also able to render the frames in hardware anti-aliased at film resolution at just one minute per frame, allowing the delivery of two shots per day. [8] While traditional animation was effective when a handful of aircraft was involved, digital effects supervisor Tricia Ashford noted that the technique would be "too laborious for the frenetic dogfight that concludes Independence Day." [8] "The final air battle takes place around a fifteen-mile-wide destroyer," remarked Ashford, "and Roland wanted to see hundreds of F-18s and attackers duking it out with missiles, light balls, and tracer fire. It was an enormous challenge; the only way it could be accomplished was through an advanced procedural system that could automatically calculate and render the interaction between all these different elements." [8] VisionArt demonstrated such a system to Roland Emmerich and his team, who loved it. "VisionArt had a tremendous system to begin with," stated Ashford, "and then they were able to adapt it to meet the needs of our show." [8] In a 1996 interview for SIGGRAPH, writer Dean Devlin stated "When we were shown the software that was developed at VIsionArt, where we could just slide a little bar and add more F-18's and more alien attackers... the ease in which were able to create these shots, and the flexibility – I don't think that we could have done these sequences without it." [9] Rob Bredow modified Sparky "to simulate the behavioral characteristics of an aerial dogfight involving hundreds of planes and attackers." [8] Initially, the US Navy was open to providing data on the flight characteristics of the F-18, but the Pentagon wanted Emmerich to strike all reference to Area 51 from the film. Given the centrality of Area 51 to UFO folklore, Emmerich refused. Fortunately, the Royal Australian Air Force had no qualms about references to Area 51, and happily provided the needed data. Director Roland Emmerich and writer Dean Devlin then provided the equivalent fictional characteristics for the alien attackers. "Once the capabilities of the planes and alien attackers were established, Bredow and software engineers Randi Stern and Brian Hall developed a range of prioritized objectives for each. an F-18, for example, might have the objective of attacking the destroyer, unless an alien attacker entered a zone that triggered evasive action." [8] Rules were also established so that planes and attackers would bank away from and keep clear of the 3D space that would be occupied by the destroyer once it was composited into the shot. [8] In the end, Independence Day shattered box office records, grossing over US$817 million worldwide, and won the 1996 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.[ citation needed ]

Godzilla (1998)

VisionArt's sister company FutureLight, headed by Rob Bredow (who later became the head of Industrial Light & Magic), [10] created the first real-time tetherless optical motion capture (mocap) system in the industry. FutureLight's mocap was used by VisionArt to allow director Roland Emerich to conceptualize the hero CG character for 1998's Godzilla . [11] It was also used in conjunction with Sparky for a number of key Babyzilla shots, including 885 babies. [11] "With those kinds of numbers, key frame animation was impossible, so VisionArt's Rob Bredow, Brian Hall and Pete Shinners developed sophisticated flocking software that the babies a kind of artificial intelligence. With their flocking software, the babies had a set of animations to choose from, knew their environment, and knew parameters for moving." [11] The visual effects for Godzilla were particularly notable in that it was the first major feature film to employ CG animation integrated into a large volume of handheld camera footage, accounting for roughly 80% of the film's 400 visual effects shots. VisionArt employed a Zeiss Rec Elta RL-S reflectorless laser survey head (SN 702706-0000.720 217012) to obtain precise on-set 3-D measurements for the large scale street scenes such as those filmed in Manhattan, then coupled that data with custom developed 2D to 3D camera tracking software which allowed CG characters and debris to be seamlessly integrated into the erratic hand-held camera shots. [11] VisionArt completed 135 of the film's visual effects shots in-house, nearly one-third of the total, and provided the camera tracking to Centropolis Effects, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digiscope and Pixel Liberation Front, which created the remainder of the shots. [11]

Dr. Dolittle (1998)

VisionArt created 80 talking animal shorts for the 1998's Dr. Dolittle , most of which involved blending 3D elements integrated with 2D animation of the live-action animal, involving everything from muzzle replacement to full head replacement on a given animal actor. [6] VisionArt believed that key to creating successful talking animals was keeping a real animal's eyes, even when much of the animal's face was CG: "The eyes are so much of what brings them to life," said Josh Rose, executive vice president of VisionArt, adding "On many of the close-up shots of Rodney the guinea pig, we ended up doing muzzle replacements; almost two-thirds of his head was 3-D, but we kept his real eyes. For the cat, the real eyes were also kept — the computer graphics feathered off about half an inch all the way around the mouth. The only animals we did CG eyes for were the sheep, because they were chewing so much and their entire bodies moved. We had to replace large enough portions of them so you wouldn't see our CG animation sliding over their real bodies." [6] "I had reservations about getting into 3-D because I'd never seen it done successfully with living characters," recalls Jon Farhat, the film's vfx supervisor, "We didn't want overanimation. we wanted very subtle, precise movements – like our animals were impeccably trained." [12] VisionArt's Ted Fay had come up with an approach that included developing a process to turn 3D wireframe animation into animated 2D Elastic Reality shapes, so that the 3D mouth area could be seamlessly blended into the animals live-action face, while also allowing for additional animation and enhancement of the animal's eyebrow expressions. One of VisionArt's most challenging creations was a Spanish-speaking orangutan. Rose recalls, "Jon Farhat tended to find out what Betty and the producers were most excited about at the time, and then just embellish it. They were loving the orangutan, so Jon came in and grilled us really hard on that. Betty really wanted to see the sensitivity and the specularity and the rolloff of the light on those big, wet lips. The orangutan's whole muzzle area and the meaty part of his mouth were all 3-D. Stirling Duguid, our 3-D animation supervisor, built in all of these really insane little details — the crevices and wrinkles in the skin — and then added really big, sweeping meaty lips and a big tongue. He got a lot of articulation in there. There was a desire to give the orangutan a stoned, Cheech and Chong-style appearance, so Ted Fay, our 2-D supervisor, created that heavy-lidded look by warping his expressive eyes using Avid's Elastic Reality. In the end, it came out looking great." [6] Other artists involved were Jon-Marc Kortsch, Chad Carlberg, Todd Boyce, Bethany Berndt-Shackelford, Kristen Branan, Mike Bray, Richard Cook, Shellaine Corwel, Robert D. Crotty, John Campuzano, Archie Donato, Christina Drahos, Chris Greenberg, Dorene Haver, Hillary Hoggard (Covey), Jimmy Jewell, Anne Putnam Kolbe, Daniel Kramer, John Lafauce, Toan-Vinh Le, Jim 'Big Dog' McLean, Daniel Naulin, Jeremy Nelligan, John Peel, Joshua D. Rose, Barry Safley, and Jeremy Squires. [13]

"Transparent" visual effects

In addition to being known for science fiction work like Independence Day, Star Trek, and Godzilla, VisionArt specialized in "transparent" effects: removing, replacing, or modifying a wide range of objects in a scene to help tell the story, fix a mistake, or recreate worlds that no longer exist or never did. [4] [11]

Closure

VisionArt closed their doors in 2000, selling most of their assets to Digital Art Media. Many of the key staff moved to Sony Pictures Imageworks, Industrial Light & Magic, Digital Domain, and other VFX facilities.

VisionArt selected filmography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animation</span> Method of creating moving pictures

Animation is a filmmaking technique by which still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets (cels) to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animation has been recognized as an artistic medium, specifically within the entertainment industry. Many animations are computer animations made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stop motion animation, in particular claymation, has continued to exist alongside these other forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer animation</span> Art of creating moving images using computers

Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation only refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morphing</span> Special effect

Morphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes one image or shape into another through a seamless transition. Traditionally such a depiction would be achieved through dissolving techniques on film. Since the early 1990s, this has been replaced by computer software to create more realistic transitions. A similar method is applied to audio recordings, for example, by changing voices or vocal lines.

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original Star Wars, now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga.

Visual effects is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.

Poser is a figure posing and rendering 3D computer graphics program distributed by Bondware. Poser is optimized for the 3D modeling of human figures. It enables beginners to produce basic animations and digital images, along with the extensive availability of third-party digital 3D models.

This is a chronological list of films and television programs that have been recognized as being pioneering in their use of computer animation.

<i>Nicktoons Film Festival</i> American TV series or program

The Nicktoons Film Festival was an annual event that was created by producer Fred Seibert and produced for its first three years by his Frederator Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Muren</span> Visual effects pioneer

Dennis Muren, A.S.C is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Data Images</span> American animation studio owned by DreamWorks Animation

Pacific Data Images (PDI) was an American visual effects and computer animation production company based in Redwood City, California, that was bought by DreamWorks SKG in 2000. It was renamed PDI/DreamWorks and was owned by DreamWorks Animation.

Mathematical Applications Group, Inc. was an early computer technology company founded in 1966 by Dr. Philip Mittelman and located in Elmsford, New York, where it was evaluating nuclear radiation exposure. By modeling structures using combinatorial geometry mathematics and applying monte carlo radiation ray tracing techniques, the mathematicians could estimate exposures at various distances and relative locations in and around fictional structures. In 1972, the graphics group called MAGi/SynthaVision was formed at MAGi by Robert Goldstein.

Foundation Imaging, Inc. was a CGI visual effects studio, computer animation studio, and post-production editing facility.

Previsualization is the visualizing of scenes or sequences in a movie before filming. It is a concept used in other creative arts, including animation, performing arts, video game design, and still photography. Previsualization typically describes techniques like storyboarding, which uses hand-drawn or digitally-assisted sketches to plan or conceptualize movie scenes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avid Matador</span>

Matador was a paint application targeted at the television and film production markets. Running on Silicon Graphics workstations, its main features were paint, mask creation/rotoscoping, animation, and image stabilization/tracking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avid Elastic Reality</span>

Elastic Reality was a warping and morphing software application available on Windows, Macintosh, and Silicon Graphics workstations and was discontinued in 1999.

The history of computer animation began as early as the 1940s and 1950s, when people began to experiment with computer graphics – most notably by John Whitney. It was only by the early 1960s when digital computers had become widely established, that new avenues for innovative computer graphics blossomed. Initially, uses were mainly for scientific, engineering and other research purposes, but artistic experimentation began to make its appearance by the mid-1960s – most notably by Dr. Thomas Calvert. By the mid-1970s, many such efforts were beginning to enter into public media. Much computer graphics at this time involved 2-D imagery, though increasingly as computer power improved, efforts to achieve 3-D realism became the emphasis. By the late 1980s, photo-realistic 3-D was beginning to appear in film movies, and by mid-1990s had developed to the point where 3-D animation could be used for entire feature film production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer-generated imagery</span> Application of computer graphics to create or contribute to images

Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is a specific-technology or application of computer graphics for creating or improving images in art, printed media, simulators, videos and video games. These images are either static or dynamic. CGI both refers to 2D computer graphics and 3D computer graphics with the purpose of designing characters, virtual worlds, or scenes and special effects. The application of CGI for creating/improving animations is called computer animation, or CGI animation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rob Coleman</span> Canadian animation director

Rob Coleman is a Canadian animation director; he is currently the creative director at Industrial Light & Magic's Sydney branch. Previously, he was the Head of Animation at the award-winning Australian visual effects and animation studio, Animal Logic from 2012-2021.

In animation, a smear frame is a frame used to simulate motion blur. Smear frames are used in between key frames. This animation technique has been used since the 1940s. Smear frames are used to stylistically visualize fast movement along a path of motion.

References

  1. 1 2 "Deep Space Nine". Archived from the original on 2004-09-20.
  2. ↑ Star Trek: First Contact (1996) , retrieved 2018-10-13
  3. 1 2 "VFX HQ: VisionArt". www.vfxhq.com. Retrieved 2018-10-12.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fay, Ted (March 1994). "Northern Exposure's Dog Speaks". Post Magazine.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Ferrare, Bianca (7 January 1994). "E! News Daily - Northern Exposure - A Dog's Life". E! Entertainment Television.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Magid, Ron (Dec 1998). "Talk Like the Animals". American Cinematographer.
  7. ↑ "VFX HQ: INDEPENDENCE DAY". www.vfxhq.com. Retrieved 2018-10-12.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Prokop, Tim (September 1996). "Fireworks". Cinefex.
  9. ↑ "Independence Day - SIGGRAPH Interview with Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin". SIGGRAPH Conference (1996) New Orleans - VisionArt/Chalice News Conference. August 1996.
  10. ↑ "Rob Bredow | SVP, Executive Creative Director & Head of ILM". Lucasfilm. Retrieved 2018-10-21.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kaufman, Deborah (June 1998). "Building a Perfect Beast". Post Magazine.
  12. ↑ Shay, Estelle (October 1998). "Animals with Attitude". Cinefex.
  13. ↑ Doctor Dolittle (1998) , retrieved 2018-10-13
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.