DreamWorks Animation's Apollo Animation Software. Blender and CG Discussions. Davida (davida) April 23, 2018, 7:46am #1. Bloomberg.com Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg delivers business and markets news, data, analysis, and video to the world, featuring stories from Businessweek and Bloomberg News. Premo was built on the foundation of Apollo, the animation company's software infrastructure for creating computer-generated movies. And it was created in-house by a team that included both the. Apollo was started in 1980, two years before Sun Microsystems. In addition to Poduska, the founders included Dave Nelson (Engineering), Mike Greata (Engineering), Charlie Spector (COO), Bob Antonuccio (Manufacturing), Gerry Stanley (Sales and Marketing), and Dave Lubrano (Finance).
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Apollo Simulator is a space simulator that allows you to take part in several missions within the Apollo program, aimed at exploring the surface of the Moon.
Looking to increase quality, efficiency and the creative life of its animators, DreamWorks explores the outer limits of animated features with its new animation software, Apollo
Looking to increase quality, efficiency and the creative life of its animators, DreamWorks explores the outer limits of animated features with its new animation software, Apollo
Apollo Animation Software Free
Apollos main components are Premo for animation and Torch for lighting
Sometimes, California couldnt be any more California if it donned a pink bikini and sipped on an appletini frozen yogurt smoothie under the shade of a non-native palm tree.
Case in point: Arriving at the DreamWorks campus on a sunny day in Los Angeles, the first thing we see is a health fair. Dozens of young, fresh-faced fitness purveyors, representing active lifestyle options ranging from yoga to cross-fit to spinning studios, lined up in an area that amounts to DreamWorks massive front lawn. DreamWorks employees mill about, browsing the literature and chatting among themselves, imagining the ways that they, too, can get even fitter.
Premo lets DreamWorks artists pose their characters using an intuitive tablet-based interface, and implement changes to high-res character models almost instantly
As tempting as they are, however, were not here for the fitness opportunities. Rather, were here to see how DreamWorks got its workflow in shape - namely, its development and integration of Apollo, its next-gen animation software.
Apollo was created in collaboration with Intel, over the course of roughly 5 years. The resulting software takes advantage of Intels multi-core technology, along with its hybrid cloud computing resources; essentially, DreamWorks has come up with a head-to-toe platform for visual computing, making the most of the many, many CPUs DreamWorks has both on premises and off. Its artist-friendly, fully scalable software, and helps the animation giant with nearly every aspect of making its animated films.
Essentially, Apollos main components are Premo for animation and Torch for lighting. For its part, Premo lets artists pose their characters using an intuitive tablet-based interface, and implement changes to high-res character models almost instantly. What used to take up to 20 minutes now happens in a matter of milliseconds, thanks to a more efficient code base and the softwares ability to make use of the multiple cores inside each of the animators PCs (the animators near constant rendering ping pong breaks - that is to say, actual games of ping pong between changes - are a thing of the past, for better or worse).
What used to take up to 20 minutes now happens in a matter of milliseconds, thanks to Apollo by DreamWorks
Premo allows artists to manipulate the skin, muscle and facial expressions of their characters in real time, which helps immensely with the creative process; its significantly more artist-friendly than Emo, which required a great deal of data entry.
We watch as Senior Animator Lief Jeffers works with multiple high-resolution characters onscreen at once, making various adjustments to each of them on-the-fly. This makes creating physically and emotionally complex interactions between characters massively more functional; for its part, Emo could only handle changes to one character at a time, often creating a disconnect for the artist when working on a scene. Its very fast in action: grabbing one of the characters upper lips with his stylus, Jeffers is able to transform it in real time without the slightest hitch, causing the corresponding muscles around the mouth contort realistically.
As an animator, when I want to interact with characters inside of a scene, the goal is always to focus on the artistry, and not be hindered by the technical limitations of the software, says Senior Animator Leif Jeffers. Having the freedom to pose a high-resolution character in real time allows me, for the first time, to focus fully on the artistry without ever having to wait for the software to catch up to what I'm thinking.
Premo allows DreamWorks artists to manipulate the skin, muscle and facial expressions of their characters in real time
Indeed, when Emo was first created, spreadsheets were the only way to animate. With the switch to Premo, Dreamworks decided to remove spreadsheets altogether and institute new methods to control animation. The graph editor allows animators to visualize every control's timing and intensity in graph form. The second method is more artistically driven through the direct manipulation of character with a Cintiq and digital pen.
With Emo, the more characters I loaded, the slower the software became, Jeffers continues. Even using low-resolution proxies didn't help with interactivity. For this reason, we would only turn on the bare essentials. This became problematic when you were trying to work out a strong composition for the shot, or animate an important interaction between two or more characters. Turning characters on and off, or switching between a low-resolution proxy to the high resolution model, was both cumbersome and time consuming. Using Premo, I can display all of the characters in a scene at their highest resolution, and interact with them in real time. This allows me to focus on artistic choices, without any slowdown from the software.
The aforementioned Torch, meanwhile, is used to design the look of a project and its environments. The production team hired a number of cinematographers, including 11-time Academy Award-nominated Director of Photography Roger Deakins, to help the lighting understand his visual approach, and how it could be applied to their digital process. An animated feature has roughly half a billion digital files, many of which include shape, color data, and texture maps, all of which are being continuously revised over the course of development; the Torch Project browser manages these assets in a more future-forward, visual approach.
DreamWorks created more than 100,000 storyboards for How to train Your Dragon 2. Plus! The animators created more than 500 million digital files!
To bring to life its last feature, How to Train Your Dragon 2, the team at DreamWorks created more than 100,000 storyboards for the 90-minute film. It took more than 18 months to complete, and the animators then created more than 500 million digital files, stored across 398 terabytes. It took a fleet of cloud computers in data centers more than 90 million render hours to render the 129,600 frames in the final film. But DreamWorks had so much computing power on hand that it could render those frames inside of a week or so for the last cut. Dreamworks also shares three data centers based in their respective studios in Los Angeles, northern California and Bangalore. Each center houses HPs Generation 8 servers that are 40% faster, and like most technology these days, now also use 40-percent less power.
One of the more exciting new pieces of DreamWorks arsenal is its new video capture studio, where the director can visualize a scene before the animators draw it. Manny Francisco, DreamWorks Director of Technology for Performance Animation, shows us around the tools:
Apollo's graph editor allows DreamWorks animators to visualize every control's timing and intensity in graph form
Essentially, a shoulder-mounted camera is operated in front of a giant green-screen, where the films animated characters are effectively physicalized in 3D space. This means that the camera operator can choreograph shots using traditional means - that is to say, using their hands and feet - rather than faffing aboutwith virtual cameras and the like.
We were able to try this for ourselves, and the effect is very impressive: its like shooting a live-action film with animated characters, the camera reacting without missing a beat as you pan and rotate around them. Its a fantastically intuitive way of defining the timing, blocking and cadence of individual scenes, and its become an essential part of the studios workflow.
Using Premo, DreamWorks artists can display all of the characters in a scene at their highest resolution, and interact with them - all in real time
When working with film directors, the focus is about creativity and their need to convey the idea they have in their head, says Director of Technology for Performance Animation Manny Francisco. This requires a workflow design where the technology is transparent and the tools are tuned to how they want to work. The motion capture stage is successful in this because we created a method for them to use a camera in a virtual world like they would for a live action workflow. This familiarity enables them to immediately begin working without having to learn a new process.
The technology is used to solve creative problems when setting camera movements for a shot. Having a virtual world and using a virtual camera helps the filmmakers to explore the right angles and performances that help to tell the story. The data is then used by the artists as reference for what they create on the computer, thanks to the fact that the motion capture system is fully integrated into the production pipeline. The camera data is recorded in parallel with the actor performance, and digitally handed off to the respective department making the data instantly available.
Apollo technology is used at DreamWorks to help solve creative problems when setting camera movements for a shot
With Emo, the emphasis was on spreadsheets with names and lists of controls. With Apollo, the idea was to combine the intuitiveness and immediacy of hand-drawn animation on paper, with the tangible aspect of stop motion, where the artist can touch the character and move elements around, getting immediate feedback. Of course, Apollo brings to this recipe the many advantages of the computer, where the artist can then edit to their hearts content (or their schedules allowance, anyway).
Torch simplifies data management by showing the data in a visual graph, making the work of maintaining the correct assets for a scene easier, says Shadi Almassizadeh, workflow director and product designer for Torch. Torch also enhances shot lighting with visualization tools such as preview lighting and asset visualization in a 3D Viewer.
Almassizadehs experience as a stage lighter and visual effects artist for live-action movies provided the engineering team with a great amount of information to develop the types of tools and features that would make his workflow more intuitive and less technical. Torch enables him to light his scenes the way he expects real light to work, such as light bouncing off objects, providing a full range of options to set the mood of a scene.
There are two elements to Torch that empower my creativity, says Almassizadeh. The first is dealing with the complexity of a CG-animated movie. Our scene files have millions of objects and attributes to deal with. Using Torch, we were able to consolidate the information needed for artistry, while hiding many elements to reduce complexity. Using the data project and version control system, I also have the highest level of collaboration with my team. All the artists on the movie can do their work in parallel, and I dont have to be concerned with missing critical changes that are sent to me.
The idea for Apollo was to combine the intuitiveness of hand-drawn animation with the tangible aspect of stop motion, where artists can touch the character and get immediate feedback
Home Free
DreamWorks is continuing to make rapid technological innovations for the upcoming film /Home/, slated for release next year. Itegrating Apollo is said to not only improve quality and workflow, but also reduce the budgets of the studios films to the tune of 10s of millions of dollars.
Oh, and the productivity gains are said to be enormous: Rather than releasing one film every 18 months, DreamWorks believes its now capable of releasing three movies each calendar year. Thats a mighty big leap, and what industry types like to call a competitive advantage - which is to say, the studio has no plans to license the software anytime soon.
Related links:
Visit DreamWorks Animation's official site
Head to the How to Train Your Dragon 2 movie site
Read more about Apollo
Fetching comments...
Post a comment
Related
News: Interviews
Stefanie Zirkus: 3D character modeler interview
Below are some simple animations that I put together for forAST 105: Introduction to the Solar System, AST 203:Astronomy, and AST 205: Introduction to Planetary Sciences.
All of these are coded in python, using the matplotlib library forplotting. The source code is provided in each case. These codes arenot meant to be interactive -- they simply dump out frames of theanimation that can be assembled into a movie using a program likemencoder. This python script (mkmovie.py) provides an easy interface to mencoder for stringing a bunch of PNGs into movies.
You are free to use these codes or animations for teaching purposes (please credit Michael Zingale). If you find a mistake or make an improvement, please send it alongto Michael.Zingale @ stonybrook.edu, or fork the github repo and issue a pull request.
Many of these animations are now up on YouTube:
Solar System Motion / Kepler's Laws
Planetary Orbits and Kepler's Laws [HD] |
|---|
Integrate the orbits of two planets around a star, neglecting the gravitational force between the planets themselves. This is useful for demonstrating Kepler's third law. We work in units of AU, years, and solar masses. The semi-major axes are picked such that one planet has an orbital period of 1 year and the other of 2 years. As the animation plays, you should see that the speed of the outer planet varies, becoming fastest at perihelion and slowest a aphelion. You will also see that the outer planet takes longer to complete its orbit around the Sun, since P2 ~ a3. Movie of orbits: |
Kepler's Second Law [HD] |
|---|
Show equal areas in equal times, by shading the area swept out by a planet in equal time intervals. second law animation: |
Solar System Harmonic Law Figure |
|---|
A simple figure plotting the period of planets (+ pluto optionally) in our solar system vs. semi-major axis on a log-log plot, showing the P2 ~ a3 relation. Optionally plot the Galilean moons of Jupiter on the same axes, showing that they obey a P2 ~ a3 relation as well, but with a different constant. Harmonic law figure (just planets): harmonic_law.png |
Retrograde Motion [HD] |
|---|
Integrate Earth and Mars in their orbits around the Sun, starting a bit before opposition, and draw a line indicating the line-of-sight to Mars from Earth against some background stars to show the change in apparent motion. Note: the orbits are simplified here -- the semi-major axis and eccentricity are correct, but it is assumed that both ellipses are oriented the same way. For demonstration purposes, this is not all that critical. Movie of retrograde motion: |
Parallax Animation [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how parallax works, illustrating the motion of the Earth around the Sun and the apparent shift seen in the position of a nearby star against the background, more distant stars. Parallax animation: |
Mercury's rotation [HD] |
|---|
Illustrate a 3:2 resonance between the rotation period and orbital period of Mercury. The semi-major axis and eccentricity for the planet drawn match Mercury. The black dot on the surface of the planet represents a person standing initially directly under the Sun at perihelion. Mercury rotation animation: |
Moon's Synchronous Rotation [HD] |
|---|
Illustrate the synchronous rotation of the Moon. The black dot represents a person standing on the surface. The orbit is taken to be circular, for simplicity. Moon rotation animation: |
Orbital Energy [HD] |
|---|
A simple showing the orbit of a planet around the Sun, outputting the kinetic energy / unit mass, the potential energy / unit mass, and the total energy / unit mass along the way. Orbital energy animation: |
Lunar Period [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how the time between successive full Moons (the synodic lunar period) is greater than the true (sidereal) orbital period of the Moon. Orbital energy animation: |
Sidereal vs. Solar Day (for Earth) [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how the true rotation period of Earth (the sidereal day) is shorter than the time between noons (the solar day). Orbital energy animation: |
Phases of the Moon [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing the phases of the Moon and the corresponding point in the Moons orbit around the Earth, with respect to the Sun. Phases animation: |
Solstices and Equinox [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing the Earth at either solstice or and equinox (with the time set as noon UTC). Summer Solstice: Winter Solstice: Equinox: Another rendering, this time from noon to noon, centered on Stony Brook, NY Summer Solstice: |
Earth Diagram [HD] |
|---|
An animated diagram pointing out how latitude, zenith, and horizon are defined, as well as showing the orientation of Earth on the Summer Solstice and showing the tropics and (ant)arctic circles. earth_summer_solstice.avi [MS MPEG-4v2] |
Seasons [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how the Earth's axial tilt does not change direction over the course of an orbit, giving rise to the seasons. Seasons animation: |
Resonances in the Asteroid Belt [HD] |
|---|
A 2:1 resonance between an asteroid (shown in red) and Jupiter (black) as they orbit around the Sun. Some randomly placed asteroids are also shown. Seasons animation: |
Tidal locking [HD] |
|---|
An illustration of tidal locking of a moon in orbit around a planet. The rotation of the moon is visualized by coloring alternate quadrants differently, and watching a stationary person rotate with the moon.. The tidal distortion is always along the planet-moon line. Tidal locking animation: |
Ellipse Properties
Ellipse Geometry Figure |
|---|
A simple figure used to illustrate the geometry of an ellipse. Here, a is the semi-major axis, e is the eccentricity, and b is the semi-minor axis. r and r' are lines connecting a point on the ellipse (the black dot) to the foci. Ellipse geometry figure: ellipse_geom.png |
Eccentricity of Ellipses [HD] |
|---|
A demonstration of how varying the eccentricity of an ellipse changes the shape. Ellipse eccentricity animation: |
How to Draw an Ellipse [HD] |
|---|
A demonstration of how to draw an ellipse. Here we show the distance from each foci to the position on the ellipse, and show that their sum is constant. changes the shape. Drawing and ellipse animation: |
Mechanics
Apollo Animation Software Download
Achieving an Orbit [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation that shows a projectile with increasing horizontal velocity, working up to the circular velocity. (This script uses the image earth.png; image credit: NASA/Apollo 17) Achieving orbit animation: |
Circular vs. Escape Velocity Animation [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how the orbit of a projectile around Earth changes as we increase the change the tangential velocity from less than the circular velocity to greater than the escape velocity. (This script uses the image earth.png; image credit: NASA/Apollo 17) Escape velocity animation: |
Changing An Orbit [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how an initially circular orbit is changed into an elliptical one by increasing the velocity at perihelion. Two boosts are modeled. (This script uses the image earth.png; image credit: NASA/Apollo 17) Changing orbit animation: |
Radiation / Thermodynamics
Blackbody Spectrum (frequency) [HD] |
|---|
Show how the Planck function varies as temperature is changed. A 'thermometer' on the right keeps track of the temperature. Some reference Planck function curves are plotted every 2 orders-of-magnitude in temperature to illustrate the shift in the location of peak intensity with increasing temperature. Also, the visible frequencies are highlighted with a blue shading. Blackbody spectrum animation: |
Blackbody Spectrum (wavelength) [HD] |
|---|
Similar to the animation above, but in terms of wavelenght instead of frequency. Show how the Planck function varies as temperature is changed. A 'thermometer' on the right keeps track of the temperature. Some reference Planck function curves are plotted every 2 orders-of-magnitude in temperature to illustrate the shift in the location of peak intensity with increasing temperature. Also, the visible wavelengths are highlighted with a blue shading. Blackbody spectrum animation: |
Random Walk [HD] |
|---|
A demonstration of a random walk process. A number of small hops are taken in random directions, until the overall displacement is equal to the radius of the circle. If you change the seed used for the random number generator, you will get a different result. Random walk animation: random_walk.avi [MS MPEG-4v2] |
Thermal Motion |
|---|
A demonstration of the effect of temperature on random thermal motion. Many particles in a gas are shown at two different temperatures. Note: for simplicity, we do not model collisions between the particles. Thermal motion animation:
|
Waves
Wave Propagation [HD] |
|---|
Show two waves of different wavelengths to illustrate the difference between wavelength and frequency. The propagation speed of the two waves is the same. The wavelengths are 1 and 1/4 cm, and the velocity is 2.0 cm/s. A point 'fixed' to a vertical line moves up and down as the wave passes by, to illustrate the concept of frequency. Wave propagation animation: |
Doppler Effect |
|---|
Show a moving source emitting waves. The wavefronts are plotted as red circles. The source has a speed of 1 m/s and the waves have a propagation speed of 2 m/s. The wave frequency is 3 Hz. Doppler effect animation: |
Doppler Effect 2 |
|---|
Show two moving sources emitting waves. The top source has a speed of 1 m/s and the bottom source has a speed of 0.5 m/s. The waves have a propagation speed of 2 m/s and frequency of 3 Hz. This version shows how the compression of wave fronts depends on the line of sight velocity. Doppler effect 2 animation: |
Binary Systems / Exoplanets
Apollo Animation Software Games
Binary Star Orbits [HD] | |
|---|---|
Animation of a binary pair orbiting their common center of mass (shown as the black 'x'). The case of e = 0 and e = 0.4 are shown, with a mass ratio of 1 or 2. These animations show that, in a binary system, the two stars are always opposite one another, with respect to the center of mass, and must have the same period. binary star animations:
|
Planetary Orbit and Stellar Motion [HD] |
|---|
Animation of a small body (planet) orbiting around a larger body (star) showing the small motion of the larger body around the center of mass. This uses a mass ratio of 50 between the two objects. planetary orbit animations: |
Radial Velocity Planet Detection (circular orbit) [HD] |
|---|
Illustrate the radial velocity of a star with an unseen planet over the course of a period. Here, the planet's mass was greatly exaggerated to enhance the effect. We also restrict ourselves to being in the plane of the orbits. radial velocity animation: |
Radial Velocity Planet Detection (elliptical orbit) [HD] |
|---|
Illustrate the radial velocity of a star with an unseen planet over the course of a period. Here, the planet's mass was greatly exaggerated to enhance the effect. We use an elliptical orbit but restrict ourselves to being in the plane of the orbits. The semi-major axis is not perpendicular to the observer. radial velocity animation: |
Premo allows DreamWorks artists to manipulate the skin, muscle and facial expressions of their characters in real time
Indeed, when Emo was first created, spreadsheets were the only way to animate. With the switch to Premo, Dreamworks decided to remove spreadsheets altogether and institute new methods to control animation. The graph editor allows animators to visualize every control's timing and intensity in graph form. The second method is more artistically driven through the direct manipulation of character with a Cintiq and digital pen.
With Emo, the more characters I loaded, the slower the software became, Jeffers continues. Even using low-resolution proxies didn't help with interactivity. For this reason, we would only turn on the bare essentials. This became problematic when you were trying to work out a strong composition for the shot, or animate an important interaction between two or more characters. Turning characters on and off, or switching between a low-resolution proxy to the high resolution model, was both cumbersome and time consuming. Using Premo, I can display all of the characters in a scene at their highest resolution, and interact with them in real time. This allows me to focus on artistic choices, without any slowdown from the software.
The aforementioned Torch, meanwhile, is used to design the look of a project and its environments. The production team hired a number of cinematographers, including 11-time Academy Award-nominated Director of Photography Roger Deakins, to help the lighting understand his visual approach, and how it could be applied to their digital process. An animated feature has roughly half a billion digital files, many of which include shape, color data, and texture maps, all of which are being continuously revised over the course of development; the Torch Project browser manages these assets in a more future-forward, visual approach.
DreamWorks created more than 100,000 storyboards for How to train Your Dragon 2. Plus! The animators created more than 500 million digital files!
To bring to life its last feature, How to Train Your Dragon 2, the team at DreamWorks created more than 100,000 storyboards for the 90-minute film. It took more than 18 months to complete, and the animators then created more than 500 million digital files, stored across 398 terabytes. It took a fleet of cloud computers in data centers more than 90 million render hours to render the 129,600 frames in the final film. But DreamWorks had so much computing power on hand that it could render those frames inside of a week or so for the last cut. Dreamworks also shares three data centers based in their respective studios in Los Angeles, northern California and Bangalore. Each center houses HPs Generation 8 servers that are 40% faster, and like most technology these days, now also use 40-percent less power.
One of the more exciting new pieces of DreamWorks arsenal is its new video capture studio, where the director can visualize a scene before the animators draw it. Manny Francisco, DreamWorks Director of Technology for Performance Animation, shows us around the tools:
Apollo's graph editor allows DreamWorks animators to visualize every control's timing and intensity in graph form
Essentially, a shoulder-mounted camera is operated in front of a giant green-screen, where the films animated characters are effectively physicalized in 3D space. This means that the camera operator can choreograph shots using traditional means - that is to say, using their hands and feet - rather than faffing aboutwith virtual cameras and the like.
We were able to try this for ourselves, and the effect is very impressive: its like shooting a live-action film with animated characters, the camera reacting without missing a beat as you pan and rotate around them. Its a fantastically intuitive way of defining the timing, blocking and cadence of individual scenes, and its become an essential part of the studios workflow.
Using Premo, DreamWorks artists can display all of the characters in a scene at their highest resolution, and interact with them - all in real time
When working with film directors, the focus is about creativity and their need to convey the idea they have in their head, says Director of Technology for Performance Animation Manny Francisco. This requires a workflow design where the technology is transparent and the tools are tuned to how they want to work. The motion capture stage is successful in this because we created a method for them to use a camera in a virtual world like they would for a live action workflow. This familiarity enables them to immediately begin working without having to learn a new process.
The technology is used to solve creative problems when setting camera movements for a shot. Having a virtual world and using a virtual camera helps the filmmakers to explore the right angles and performances that help to tell the story. The data is then used by the artists as reference for what they create on the computer, thanks to the fact that the motion capture system is fully integrated into the production pipeline. The camera data is recorded in parallel with the actor performance, and digitally handed off to the respective department making the data instantly available.
Apollo technology is used at DreamWorks to help solve creative problems when setting camera movements for a shot
With Emo, the emphasis was on spreadsheets with names and lists of controls. With Apollo, the idea was to combine the intuitiveness and immediacy of hand-drawn animation on paper, with the tangible aspect of stop motion, where the artist can touch the character and move elements around, getting immediate feedback. Of course, Apollo brings to this recipe the many advantages of the computer, where the artist can then edit to their hearts content (or their schedules allowance, anyway).
Torch simplifies data management by showing the data in a visual graph, making the work of maintaining the correct assets for a scene easier, says Shadi Almassizadeh, workflow director and product designer for Torch. Torch also enhances shot lighting with visualization tools such as preview lighting and asset visualization in a 3D Viewer.
Almassizadehs experience as a stage lighter and visual effects artist for live-action movies provided the engineering team with a great amount of information to develop the types of tools and features that would make his workflow more intuitive and less technical. Torch enables him to light his scenes the way he expects real light to work, such as light bouncing off objects, providing a full range of options to set the mood of a scene.
There are two elements to Torch that empower my creativity, says Almassizadeh. The first is dealing with the complexity of a CG-animated movie. Our scene files have millions of objects and attributes to deal with. Using Torch, we were able to consolidate the information needed for artistry, while hiding many elements to reduce complexity. Using the data project and version control system, I also have the highest level of collaboration with my team. All the artists on the movie can do their work in parallel, and I dont have to be concerned with missing critical changes that are sent to me.
The idea for Apollo was to combine the intuitiveness of hand-drawn animation with the tangible aspect of stop motion, where artists can touch the character and get immediate feedback
Home Free
DreamWorks is continuing to make rapid technological innovations for the upcoming film /Home/, slated for release next year. Itegrating Apollo is said to not only improve quality and workflow, but also reduce the budgets of the studios films to the tune of 10s of millions of dollars.
Oh, and the productivity gains are said to be enormous: Rather than releasing one film every 18 months, DreamWorks believes its now capable of releasing three movies each calendar year. Thats a mighty big leap, and what industry types like to call a competitive advantage - which is to say, the studio has no plans to license the software anytime soon.
Related links:
Visit DreamWorks Animation's official site
Head to the How to Train Your Dragon 2 movie site
Read more about Apollo
Fetching comments...
Post a comment
Related
News: Interviews
Stefanie Zirkus: 3D character modeler interview
Below are some simple animations that I put together for forAST 105: Introduction to the Solar System, AST 203:Astronomy, and AST 205: Introduction to Planetary Sciences.
All of these are coded in python, using the matplotlib library forplotting. The source code is provided in each case. These codes arenot meant to be interactive -- they simply dump out frames of theanimation that can be assembled into a movie using a program likemencoder. This python script (mkmovie.py) provides an easy interface to mencoder for stringing a bunch of PNGs into movies.
You are free to use these codes or animations for teaching purposes (please credit Michael Zingale). If you find a mistake or make an improvement, please send it alongto Michael.Zingale @ stonybrook.edu, or fork the github repo and issue a pull request.
Many of these animations are now up on YouTube:
Solar System Motion / Kepler's Laws
Planetary Orbits and Kepler's Laws [HD] |
|---|
Integrate the orbits of two planets around a star, neglecting the gravitational force between the planets themselves. This is useful for demonstrating Kepler's third law. We work in units of AU, years, and solar masses. The semi-major axes are picked such that one planet has an orbital period of 1 year and the other of 2 years. As the animation plays, you should see that the speed of the outer planet varies, becoming fastest at perihelion and slowest a aphelion. You will also see that the outer planet takes longer to complete its orbit around the Sun, since P2 ~ a3. Movie of orbits: |
Kepler's Second Law [HD] |
|---|
Show equal areas in equal times, by shading the area swept out by a planet in equal time intervals. second law animation: |
Solar System Harmonic Law Figure |
|---|
A simple figure plotting the period of planets (+ pluto optionally) in our solar system vs. semi-major axis on a log-log plot, showing the P2 ~ a3 relation. Optionally plot the Galilean moons of Jupiter on the same axes, showing that they obey a P2 ~ a3 relation as well, but with a different constant. Harmonic law figure (just planets): harmonic_law.png |
Retrograde Motion [HD] |
|---|
Integrate Earth and Mars in their orbits around the Sun, starting a bit before opposition, and draw a line indicating the line-of-sight to Mars from Earth against some background stars to show the change in apparent motion. Note: the orbits are simplified here -- the semi-major axis and eccentricity are correct, but it is assumed that both ellipses are oriented the same way. For demonstration purposes, this is not all that critical. Movie of retrograde motion: |
Parallax Animation [HD] |
|---|
A simple animation showing how parallax works, illustrating the motion of the Earth around the Sun and the apparent shift seen in the position of a nearby star against the background, more distant stars. Parallax animation: |
Mercury's rotation [HD] |
|---|
Illustrate a 3:2 resonance between the rotation period and orbital period of Mercury. The semi-major axis and eccentricity for the planet drawn match Mercury. The black dot on the surface of the planet represents a person standing initially directly under the Sun at perihelion. Mercury rotation animation: |
Moon's Synchronous Rotation [HD] |
|---|
Illustrate the synchronous rotation of the Moon. The black dot represents a person standing on the surface. The orbit is taken to be circular, for simplicity. Moon rotation animation: |
Orbital Energy [HD] |
|---|
A simple showing the orbit of a planet around the Sun, outputting the kinetic energy / unit mass, the potential energy / unit mass, and the total energy / unit mass along the way. Orbital energy animation: |
Lunar Period [HD] |
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A simple animation showing how the time between successive full Moons (the synodic lunar period) is greater than the true (sidereal) orbital period of the Moon. Orbital energy animation: |
Sidereal vs. Solar Day (for Earth) [HD] |
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A simple animation showing how the true rotation period of Earth (the sidereal day) is shorter than the time between noons (the solar day). Orbital energy animation: |
Phases of the Moon [HD] |
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A simple animation showing the phases of the Moon and the corresponding point in the Moons orbit around the Earth, with respect to the Sun. Phases animation: |
Solstices and Equinox [HD] |
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A simple animation showing the Earth at either solstice or and equinox (with the time set as noon UTC). Summer Solstice: Winter Solstice: Equinox: Another rendering, this time from noon to noon, centered on Stony Brook, NY Summer Solstice: |
Earth Diagram [HD] |
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An animated diagram pointing out how latitude, zenith, and horizon are defined, as well as showing the orientation of Earth on the Summer Solstice and showing the tropics and (ant)arctic circles. earth_summer_solstice.avi [MS MPEG-4v2] |
Seasons [HD] |
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A simple animation showing how the Earth's axial tilt does not change direction over the course of an orbit, giving rise to the seasons. Seasons animation: |
Resonances in the Asteroid Belt [HD] |
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A 2:1 resonance between an asteroid (shown in red) and Jupiter (black) as they orbit around the Sun. Some randomly placed asteroids are also shown. Seasons animation: |
Tidal locking [HD] |
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An illustration of tidal locking of a moon in orbit around a planet. The rotation of the moon is visualized by coloring alternate quadrants differently, and watching a stationary person rotate with the moon.. The tidal distortion is always along the planet-moon line. Tidal locking animation: |
Ellipse Properties
Ellipse Geometry Figure |
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A simple figure used to illustrate the geometry of an ellipse. Here, a is the semi-major axis, e is the eccentricity, and b is the semi-minor axis. r and r' are lines connecting a point on the ellipse (the black dot) to the foci. Ellipse geometry figure: ellipse_geom.png |
Eccentricity of Ellipses [HD] |
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A demonstration of how varying the eccentricity of an ellipse changes the shape. Ellipse eccentricity animation: |
How to Draw an Ellipse [HD] |
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A demonstration of how to draw an ellipse. Here we show the distance from each foci to the position on the ellipse, and show that their sum is constant. changes the shape. Drawing and ellipse animation: |
Mechanics
Apollo Animation Software Download
Achieving an Orbit [HD] |
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A simple animation that shows a projectile with increasing horizontal velocity, working up to the circular velocity. (This script uses the image earth.png; image credit: NASA/Apollo 17) Achieving orbit animation: |
Circular vs. Escape Velocity Animation [HD] |
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A simple animation showing how the orbit of a projectile around Earth changes as we increase the change the tangential velocity from less than the circular velocity to greater than the escape velocity. (This script uses the image earth.png; image credit: NASA/Apollo 17) Escape velocity animation: |
Changing An Orbit [HD] |
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A simple animation showing how an initially circular orbit is changed into an elliptical one by increasing the velocity at perihelion. Two boosts are modeled. (This script uses the image earth.png; image credit: NASA/Apollo 17) Changing orbit animation: |
Radiation / Thermodynamics
Blackbody Spectrum (frequency) [HD] |
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Show how the Planck function varies as temperature is changed. A 'thermometer' on the right keeps track of the temperature. Some reference Planck function curves are plotted every 2 orders-of-magnitude in temperature to illustrate the shift in the location of peak intensity with increasing temperature. Also, the visible frequencies are highlighted with a blue shading. Blackbody spectrum animation: |
Blackbody Spectrum (wavelength) [HD] |
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Similar to the animation above, but in terms of wavelenght instead of frequency. Show how the Planck function varies as temperature is changed. A 'thermometer' on the right keeps track of the temperature. Some reference Planck function curves are plotted every 2 orders-of-magnitude in temperature to illustrate the shift in the location of peak intensity with increasing temperature. Also, the visible wavelengths are highlighted with a blue shading. Blackbody spectrum animation: |
Random Walk [HD] |
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A demonstration of a random walk process. A number of small hops are taken in random directions, until the overall displacement is equal to the radius of the circle. If you change the seed used for the random number generator, you will get a different result. Random walk animation: random_walk.avi [MS MPEG-4v2] |
Thermal Motion |
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A demonstration of the effect of temperature on random thermal motion. Many particles in a gas are shown at two different temperatures. Note: for simplicity, we do not model collisions between the particles. Thermal motion animation:
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Waves
Wave Propagation [HD] |
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Show two waves of different wavelengths to illustrate the difference between wavelength and frequency. The propagation speed of the two waves is the same. The wavelengths are 1 and 1/4 cm, and the velocity is 2.0 cm/s. A point 'fixed' to a vertical line moves up and down as the wave passes by, to illustrate the concept of frequency. Wave propagation animation: |
Doppler Effect |
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Show a moving source emitting waves. The wavefronts are plotted as red circles. The source has a speed of 1 m/s and the waves have a propagation speed of 2 m/s. The wave frequency is 3 Hz. Doppler effect animation: |
Doppler Effect 2 |
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Show two moving sources emitting waves. The top source has a speed of 1 m/s and the bottom source has a speed of 0.5 m/s. The waves have a propagation speed of 2 m/s and frequency of 3 Hz. This version shows how the compression of wave fronts depends on the line of sight velocity. Doppler effect 2 animation: |
Binary Systems / Exoplanets
Apollo Animation Software Games
Binary Star Orbits [HD] | |
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Animation of a binary pair orbiting their common center of mass (shown as the black 'x'). The case of e = 0 and e = 0.4 are shown, with a mass ratio of 1 or 2. These animations show that, in a binary system, the two stars are always opposite one another, with respect to the center of mass, and must have the same period. binary star animations:
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Planetary Orbit and Stellar Motion [HD] |
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Animation of a small body (planet) orbiting around a larger body (star) showing the small motion of the larger body around the center of mass. This uses a mass ratio of 50 between the two objects. planetary orbit animations: |
Radial Velocity Planet Detection (circular orbit) [HD] |
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Illustrate the radial velocity of a star with an unseen planet over the course of a period. Here, the planet's mass was greatly exaggerated to enhance the effect. We also restrict ourselves to being in the plane of the orbits. radial velocity animation: |
Radial Velocity Planet Detection (elliptical orbit) [HD] |
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Illustrate the radial velocity of a star with an unseen planet over the course of a period. Here, the planet's mass was greatly exaggerated to enhance the effect. We use an elliptical orbit but restrict ourselves to being in the plane of the orbits. The semi-major axis is not perpendicular to the observer. radial velocity animation: |
Eclipsing Binary System |
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Show an eclipsing binary system and the resulting lightcurve. Here we assume that the smaller star is hotter. eclipsing binary animation: eclipsing_binary.avi |
Transiting Planet System |
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Show a planet transiting across its parent star, and the resulting lightcurve. This is similar to the eclipsing binary system animation above, but now we assume that the smaller object (the planet) is cool. transiting planet animation: |
Apollo Animation Softwares
Equipotentials |
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An animation showing the equipotentials of the gravitational and rotational potential in the co-rotating frame of a binary system. We change the mass parameter, μ = M2/(M1 + M2). In the frames, the less massive star (M2) is on the left. equipotential animation: |
Stars
H-R diagram figure |
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A simple H-R diagram. The main sequence properties are found from Carroll and Ostlie, Appendix G. Lines of constant radius are drawn in, as well as the location of the white dwarfs. H-R diagram figure: HR_radius_wd.png |
Dreamworks Animation Apollo Software
Radioactive Decay
Radioactive decay figures |
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A sequence of figures (each represent 1 half life) illustrating the radioactive decay of a sample. Initially 2500 markers are 'parents'. Each half life, there is a 50% chance a marker decays. After a number of half lifes, no parents remain. A plot showing the exponential decay follows. radioactive decay animation: radioactive decay figures: |
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