Pre Production

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Pre Production

• Concept
• Story Development
• Visual Development
• Technical Direction
• Production Management

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Visual Development
Story Development

• Concept Treatment
• Script
• Story Boards
• Character Development
• Animatic

• Concept Art
• Character Design
• Environment Vehicle Design
• Key Art Color Script
• Pipeline Development

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Production Pipeline
The Production Pipeline is the way of organizing
the CG workflow so that at each stage during
production proceeds smoothly and passes data down
the pipeline efficiently. Technical directors
design the pipeline so that all of the
departments can work together without
bottlenecking at any one stage.
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Departments
Modeling sculpture, anatomy, figure
drawing Layout cinematography, language of
film, photography, videography Character Setup /
Rigging Sculpture, anatomy, animation, figure
drawing UV Mapping Materials / Texturing
drawing, painting, physics, computer
science Animation acting, drama, anatomy,
physics, figure drawing Effects physics,
engineering, computer science, math Lighting
Rendering computer science, photography,
physics, math Matte Painting traditional art,
painting, drawing, photography Compositing
painting, photography, color science, math,
drawing
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Pipeline
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Pipeline

• The production pipeline is different from studio
  to studio and in most cases different between
  shows. During Pre Production, adjustments are
  made to the pipeline to specifically handle the
  workflow of that project more efficiently. There
  can be extensive modifications if the project
  requires the implementation of new technology
  which is usually the case with an effects heavy
  production or a production making use of new tool
  sets.

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Modeling
Modeling artists create all the digital assets
that will be used throughout the production.
This includes all geometry such as characters,
vehicles, props, and environments. Modeling
artist must create any object that is going to
appear on screen.
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Modeling
While building detailed accurate models is
essential, modeling artists must also be aware of
how the model is going to be used further down
the pipeline. If an object is never going to get
close to the screen, it doesnt need to be as
detailed as an model that is going to be right
next to the camera.
When an model is sent to character setup, many it
will get sent back to modeling to add detail to
certain areas that are going to be deforming a
lot during animation. The opposite is also true,
if an extremely heavy model is difficult to
deform it can be sent back to modeling to remove
some detail and make the object lighter.
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Matte Painting
Matte paintings are useful when rendering extreme
wide shots of elaborate environments. Once
common method of creating matte paintings
involves taking rough renders of 3D scene
geometry and drawing directly on top of the
rendered geometry. This is also a common method
of producing concept art.
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Layout
Layout involves placing low resolution proxy
geometry in rough scenes to block camera movement
and rough character motion. Layout can begin as
soon as proxy geometry is created, which usually
means that layout can begin right after modeling
has started. Layout artist use story boards and
animatics as guides to set up camera angles and
staging.
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Layout
Layout artist are responsible for setting up the
initial staging of a shot. This can be
accomplished early during the production process
before working character rigs are created.
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Character Setup/Rigging
Character Setup artists have to create controls
for anything an animator would want to control.
Creating animation controls is called character
setup or character rigging. During character set
up, rigging artist create animation controls for
each character. Character rigging artist have to
make sure that when a character is animated that
it deforms correctly. Once an initial rigging
pass is performed on a character, it is usually
given to an animator to try to break the rig.
There is a lot of back and fourth between
animation and rigging.
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Animation
Character Animation is done in a series of
animation passes which begins with a rough first
pass called blocking. Character animators
produce many iterations of a shot in order to
perfect timing and motion. Secondary animation
such as facial animation generally takes place
after a first pass of the general character
motion has been approved.
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Animation
In addition to character performance, animation
can also involve crowd simulation and cloth
simulation for the shots that are being animated
by character animators. Technical Animators are
responsible for applying cloth simulation to
character models after they have been animated.
Technical Animators are responsible for creating
crowd animation with the use of software like
Massive.
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UV Mapping
After a 3D object has been modeled it must be
prepared for texturing. 3D surfaces can be
unwrapped into a 2D representation with . This
process is generally done by either the modelers
before the geometry is sent to texturing or by a
texturing artist before texturing can begin. It
is particularly useful to know what the final
object will look like before laying out UVs. If
and object is just going to be a solid color then
the UVs can be rough, but if the object is going
to have extremely detailed textures, then a
thorough UV set has to be laid out before
texturing can begin.
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Materials/Texturing
Once a UV set is laid out for a model, materials
can be applied to the surface. This process can
involve painting texture maps or using procedural
shaders to define surface properties. Texture
artists have to pay close attention to the
surface properties of the object they are
texturing in order for the object to accurately
interact with the cg lighting.
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Materials/Texturing
In addition to creating and assigning shaders,
texture artists are required to add aging and
wear to surface materials. This includes
adjusting materials so that they do not appear
clean and new, unless that is the desired look.
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Lighting
Lighting artist put lights into a scene and add
mood to each shot based on the script and color
keys. Lighting artists are generally responsible
for setting up their shots for final renders once
lighting is approved.
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Effects
Effects artists are in charge of modeling and
animating natural phenomena like rain, smoke,
fire, and water. This includes creating
physically based simulations and dynamic systems
to produce realistic looking effects elements
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Rendering
Large complex scenes can require multiple layers
and passes which are used by compositors to
assemble the final image. Decisions made at
every stage in production effect render times.
Large productions can sometimes require render
wranglers that watch over the render farm and
make sure every shot submitted to the farm gets
rendered. Render wranglers are responsible for
resending shots that crash on the farm or have
dropped frames.
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Compositing
Compositors assemble all the rendered layers into
one final image and make adjustments before the
image is sent out to final output. This stage
takes place outside the 3D pipeline and generally
makes use of compositing software such as Nuke,
Shake, or Digital Fusion. In many studios,
lighting artists composite their own shots due to
the fact that the two tasks are closely related.
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Compositing
In addition to assembling the final image,
compositors are responsible for preparing the
original footage for integration with the
computer generated elements. This includes
extracting keys, rotoscoping, color correction,
camera tracking, and any other image processing
that is required to complete the final shot. In
live action visual effects studios, compositing
tasks can be broken up into to more focused
departments to handle the large volume of live
action footage that must be prepared for final
compositing. This can produce situations where
many compositing artists are working on the same
shot simultaneously.
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Production Overview
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Asset Management

• In order to keep track of all the models,
  character rigs, animation scenes, and everything
  else associated with production some form of
  asset tracking system has be put into place in
  order to keep everything organized. Asset
  management is responsible for know the location
  and progress of every shot in the timeline. This
  includes every stage of the pipeline. Asset
  Management is a part of production management
  that is usually taken care of by the production
  team instead of the creative team.

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Individual Pipeline