Tag Archives: Discreet Logic

Friday Flashback #439

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Blue Sky Studios: Joe’s Apartment, 1997

Scene Description of Funky Towel:
In the movie “Joe’s Apartment”, Joe’s only friends are the talking roaches that infest his lower east side apartment. In this scene, they prepare for Joe’s first date by throwing a party of their own in his funky bathroom, paying homage to every movie musical style in the book.

Technical Notes:
Blue Sky Studios created 13 minutes of character animation for over 200 shots in the feature film JOES’ APARTMENT.

  • The roaches were modeled on CGI workstations using a combination of Softimage, CGI Studio™ (Blue Skys’ proprietary software) and 2D paint systems for creating texture maps.
  • The characters were animated using Softimage on SGI workstations . Flocking animation was created by customizing Wavefronts’ Dynamation Software.
  • The rendering was computed using Blue Sky Studios’ proprietary renderer on an eight processor SGI Challenge L and several dozen desk side SGI Workstations. Compositing was completed using proprietary software in conjunction with Discreet Logics’ Flint running on an Indigo 2.

The production lasted over 13 months and employed up to 20 people at any given time.

Friday Flashback #272

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Action Synthèse drops Max for Softimage on The Magic Roundabout

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Softimage Spins Magic Roundabout Movie
Ryan Ball Feb 5th, 2003 Animation Magazine

In creating animation for the upcoming CG feature version of the 1960s cult European TV series The Magic Roundabout, French animation studio Action Synthèse has chosen to use Softimage’s 3D software, SOFTIMAGE|XSI.

Scheduled for release in France and the U.K. in 2004, Action France and Pathé U.K.’s The Magic Roundabout will feature all original characters and two all-new additions. Australian pop star Kylie Minogue will lend her voice to cartoon character Florence. Fellow singer Robbie Williams will provide the voice for Dougal, the world-weary, shaggy dog and Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley will be Ermintrude, the whimsical cow.

Two years into the project, Action Synthèse decided to switch from Discreet’s 3ds max to SOFTIMAGE|XSI, using the 3ds max to XSI converter tool to bring existing content into the restructured 3D pipeline.

The production, underway at Action Synthèse’s recently expanded facilities in Marseilles, in the South of France, is employing more than 50 HP workstations running the SOFTIMAGE|XSI and 40 licenses of SOFTIMAGE|XSI Batch, Softimage’s batch processing & rendering solution.

According to the studio, the hair and fur tools of SOFTIMAGE|XSI have been instrumental in creating Dougal the dog’s signature long-haired coat.

A significant portion of the movie takes place in a winter land, featuring snow, glaciers, and even an ice castle. To re-create the unique feel of winter light and ice reflections while keeping rendering times under control, the team at Action Synthèse is relying on the interactive renderer within SOFTIMAGE|XSI. The new image-based lighting pass in version 3.0 allows the digital artists to generate entire lighting environments based on images or sequences.