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."

Comments

Isn't all that new...

[tonsofpcs]

This idea isn't all that new, the only new part is their application. TVPaint on the Amiga let me do this with renders (from NewTek's Lightwave).

Re:Isn't all that new...

[SilentChris]

Did TVPaint let you doodle on something already animated and save the changes automatically when you put the pen down? Did it upload the changes to the server so other artists could get a full transaction history of the suggestions being made? Did it have thoughtful design features, like turning the pen over to erase (obvious) and not allowing someone to delete the whole screen accidentally (not as obvious)? Didn't think so.

Re:Isn't all that new...

[SilentChris]

"Server? Who needs a stinkin server?"

When you're working on a major motion picture that has several dozen artists, a full team of probably close to a hundred people, and a budget of millions, you need accountability if someone makes a change.

I would think an artist would welcome being able to look back at certain versions of scenes, call them up at any point, and derive how the drawing got to where it is currently. This isn't some starving artist creating basic 3D renders in his garage; this a multi-million dollar business.

Re:Isn't all that new...

[tonsofpcs]

Did you read the article at all?? They used the drawing primarily as a directors reference to animators. Looking back at certain versions of scenes would be based up on the actual scene, not his drawing, as his direction is what it is, not what it was. Anyone that works in a production environment knows that there are two basic rules:
1) The director is always right.
2) If the director is wrong, see #1
There is no reason to go back to see what the director was right about in the past, because all that matters is what he is right about in the present.

Re:Isn't all that new...

[pipingguy]

Did it have thoughtful design features, like turning the pen over to erase (obvious) and not allowing someone to delete the whole screen accidentally (not as obvious)?

We (now obsolete) draftsmen used to actually have electric erasers and I doubt that real illustrators ever bothered to use the other end of a pencil for erasing. The choice of grades for graphite and eraser compounds (not to mention personal style) were too great to just rely on one type of erasure. I could blather on about this, but it would bore everyone.

"Deleting a whole screen" was when a badly-maintained print machine (sometimes mis-called a blueprinter - blueprints, AKA white lines on blue background - died many years ago) ate the original. We always did have recovery techniques, though, and when the large format photocopy machines came along we were able to re-use a lot of previously-drawn details without using CAD. There were erasable vellums with printing on either side of the sheet, copy-and-paste techniques, photo-drafting and other innovative tricks.

Now, of course, such creative thinking at the document creation level is no longer required because computers have made these things so much easier to do. So much easier in fact that many managers now think that designing a refinery can be done by sophisticated software and all that is needed is a bunch of CAD jockeys.

Could this have other applications?

[jim_v2000]

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.

Re:Could this have other applications?

[tonsofpcs]

Or sports announcers could even draw the plays that are being used in a football game so that home viewers can see what they are talking about.

Mac tablet imminent!

[Octagon Most]

I give you 15 minutes until this generates rumors of an impending tablet Mac.

Re:Lego Animation

[tonsofpcs]

No, I think he means like http://www.apecollection.com/FOTO/gashapon/yujin_t oysotry2_lego_6.jpg

Alias Sketchbook Pro is very similar

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I read this article in mm, and i beleive CGW had an article on it as well.. from what i understand its very similar to Alias's Sketchbook pro. It is a little different in that in Alias Sketchbook Pro you first hit the capture screen button on your windows task bar and then it opens up in alias sketch pro... where you can easy draw on the screen cap and save etc.

Alias Sketchbook pro is an EXCELLENT tool. I would like to see it have the Pixar workflow added to it though, which is to simply allow you to draw anywhere on the screen and then save it as a capture, rather than hitting the capture screen and then drawing in alias sketch.

Both workflows are good actually... let the user decide how it fits with their brain.

Either way... Alias Sketchbook Pro is very similar to Pixars tool and i definatly recommend it.

http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/sketc hb ook_pro/index.shtml

So?

[FlimFlamboyant]

The director could draw on an image, and then play it back with the image moving underneath his drawing

Pfft. John Madden has been doing this for years!

"Desktastic" from Panic....

[Dr. Mojura]

While it may not be quite as advanced, in particular with the corporate uses, Panic has a li'l app, also for OS X called desktastic which allows you to draw directly on the screen. Just as Pixar's tool, this features Wacom tablet support, variable line widths and an eraser function. The drawings can be saved for later use.

It's really quite a bit of fun! Not to mention available to Joe User.

Re:Bah.

[flewp]

I can't speak for CinePaint and gtoaster, but no free open source product comes anywhere near close to Lightwave or Maya in terms of power. And don't even try and say Blender.

If there were a free alternative that could actualyl compete to such expensive programs as LW and Maya, don't you think companies would have adopted them by now?

Open source is nice, but just because it's open source doesn't mean it's better.

Why its not the same

[acomj]

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.

I recognize this...

[lukewarmfusion]

Imagine it in a John Madden voice:

You see, Mr Incredible is running through the forest because he doesn't want to get caught. Watch him hit this spin move right there (scribbles line on screen) - and when the henchmen try to close the gap (marks an X on henchman's forehead) he cuts back and completely dodges their tackle. (unrelated doodle) I wish I had him on my team when I was coaching. (play-by-play announcer slaps forehead and shakes his head)

Gromit does this in Linux

[scav]

Gromit does this and Totem can use Gromit when playing a video.

Gromit, similar open source tool

[p_took]

gromit

Couple it with an application to take screenshots, and you're set.

What a lot of people seem to be missing:

[EnglishTim]

A lot of people seem to be missing the central point here:

The thing that is so useful about their program is not that you can sketch over the top of a picture. You can do that on a hundred different programs out there.

The big thing is that the sketches are completely integrated into their pipeline. This means that if someone makes a sketch on an image, anyone working on that show can view that sketch when they're viewing that image. They can view the sketch when they're working in their 3d package - they can view the sketch when they're working in their compositing package. It's all saved, tracked and displayed automatically.

I work at a major European Visual Effects/Post Production studio, and that kind of stuff can be tricky. Tracking all your resources, integrating all your software, that kind of thing. It's all to do with workflow making sure everything is working smoothly for everybody from Render Support through to Producers, Animators and TDs.

Re:Am I missing something?

[raytracer]

You are missing something. The key is not being able to make a sketch to show some improvement. That's not really that big of a deal. The key part is storing these images throughout the production pipeline so that artists can refer to Brad's specific directions so that they can accomplish their job efficiently. It is the integration that is important. To bring up photoshop on a separate tablet pc, transfer an image over, sketch over it, send it back and then insert it in a database is not useful.

Re:Bah.

[GMFTatsujin]

Buh... Buhl... Blennn...

Damn. You're right, it's tough!