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Pixar's Drawing Tool

May Kasahara writes "Millimeter has an interesting look at Pixar's Review Sketch tool, one of this company's latest pieces of proprietary software. It's cool in that it allows directors to draw on top of CG images with a Wacom Cintiq, essentially bringing elements of traditional hand-drawn animation into the 3D realm. The article discusses how the tool came about, how it was used during the production of The Incredibles, and even includes a discussion of the tool's naming."

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Could this have other applications? by jim_v2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Say a doctor is performing a surgery, and suddenly needs help from a a more experienced surgeon. Get him on the net, get a live video feed of hte operation going, and the more experienced doctor can draw live diagrams (or whatever he needs to)to show the other what to do/where to go.

    --
    Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
  2. Why its not the same by acomj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is some tendancy to say "photoshot already does this with layers..." and to some extent its true, but why this is different.

    Its not a pixel drawing tool. Its a hybrid vecto tool with erase any part of the stroke you put down capability. You erase any part you like, which is a neat solution.

    quoth..
    A key feature of the tool is its eraser. "This is a vector-based tool with a raster erase," says Johnson. "You can scale an image up or down, and when you want to erase, you turn the pen over and it erases.
    end quote.

    I like software solutions to specific problems, especially those that can be developed by small teams. Unix like.

    It seems to be just erasing by adding "transparent strokes" which I've never seen before. It would make it harder for an application like painter to use this technique because how many layers would you remove. But for sketching it seems ideal.