SIGGRAPH 2012

For the past few months I have been focusing on my thesis development and things have been coming together very well. I hope to share some of those details soon!  On top of that I have been working  hard on several exciting side projects and preproduction on a big animation for the fall.

I will be heading to SIGGRAPH this weekend and I'm really looking forward to really exploring opportunities out there.  If you are heading to the conference and would like to meet up, please don't hesitate to email me!

Term Recap

The term has come to a close and Im really proud of the final projects I put together. You can find out more details about them at the following addresses:

Motion Capture: http://glennwinters.com/motioncapture/

Museum Game Experience: http://glennwinters.com/operationdino/

I'm looking forward to sharing a few more things over break. Im going to be working with a fellow student doing a facial mocap study and I'm also attending a Houdini work session in NYC. Feel free to leave comments about the two projects. I would love to hear some feedback. Happy spring.

Motion Capture Post Processing

Below is my first go at the correct pipeline for post processing in motion capture. We filmed the sequence in our Vicon volume. I cleaned up the data in blade before bringing into mobu to be retargeted. Please ignore the standard mia character mesh! This was great to see early on. I was able to notice a few things to look into over the next few weeks. Slowly but surely, getting there.

Research Research Research

Happy New Year everyone! It's hard to believe that 2012 has come and I'm almost half way through my first year as an official graduate student. This academic year has lead to a lot of new research opportunities. I have been actively busy in all my classes and it feels great to come in and learn something new every day. This is what I set myself out to do when I came to school and it feels good that it's all happening. I wanted to give you all an update on the busyness of winter term.

First and foremost I am fortunate enough to continue my teaching opportunities here at Drexel. I finished teaching Animation 1 last term and it was truly an awesome experience to see students grow throughout the term. I really look forward to seeing them all move forward in there studies. This term I am teaching a preproduction pipeline course and it's interesting to take a step back and really teach the basics of art/design/theory. My job is to prepare the students with the skills they need in order to hit the ground running in their CG classes ahead. Its great to always to revisit the basics and analyze new ways to achieve those principles. In fact, that has lead me to a new thesis concept that I'm very excited to pursue. More on that later.

This term has lead to a whole new variety of research that has opened many different avenues. I have been spending my time as a lead producer on a gaming project in our graduate gaming course. It has been a great to work with my fellow students and design a game that is not on a console but may live in a physical space. We are lucky enough to work with The Academy of Natural Sciences to produce a non-linear educational tablet experience. The game is focusing on educational messages of adaptations of dinosaurs . You can find out more about the game on our production blog here: http://glennwinters.com/gradgaming/. We are focusing on using tablet technology to create an experience that will engage children 8-12 in a fun learning experience.

I am also in a class focusing on the back end of shader’s and the code that builds them. I'm really enjoying getting "under the hood". I'm very fortunate to have a motion capture studio to work with here at Drexel. For my regular followers, you may remember that I worked with our motion capture system this past summer. I was able to work out a pipeline to capture pieces of data for our gladiator gaming project. This term I decided to research this process in more detail and it has been a fantastic experience. The pipeline is constantly presenting me with challenges.

The project is fairly simple on the outside. I am working with the Drexel Karate club to stage a knife-fighting scene that I hope to turn into a brief 15-30 second cinematic of data. In the end I will strictly just have clean skeletal structures and focus on retargeting a mesh in the future. It may look short and simple on the outside but there has been a lot of research involved. After the help from various sources I was able to get the system calibrated with all of our actors. I couldn't have done this with out the help of my fellow students Mike Dixon, Nate Lapinksi, Matt Haas, Ian Suen, and Tom Welker. We have been running tests and pushing our volume's limitations. I was able to then learn a lot about the postproduction process and cleaning up data. I'm experimenting with cleaning up marker swapping, cleaning up tails, gaps, spline interpolation, rigid fills, and just general observations about the point clouds. Currently, I’m trying to solve some issues regarding wrist markers and prop interaction between the two actors. This will ultimately lead up to filming the sequence on the 21st this month. My fingers are crossed to actually get our virtual camera rig up and running to actually film the data as well.

Overall, it has really been an exciting project that is leading to many opportunities on campus. I'm currently helping out with three other motion capture projects within the department and also prepping a presentation on motion capture for the medical school.

It really is an exciting time right now and the months ahead are really looking to be some interesting learning experiences. I’m looking forward to sharing the progress of these projects over the next few weeks. Until then, check out these amazing images of Naughty Dog's upcoming game, The Last of Us. Amazing Screen Shots .

Also, I will be attending SIGGRAPH this year in LA. Feel free to contact me if anyone out there would like to meet up!

Fall Term

As always, it has been a busy few months for me here at Drexel and a lot has been going on. To start things off I have been teaching two animation classes and I can tell you that I have enjoyed every minute of it. I really like going back to the principles of animation and teaching to a new generation of artists. The best part is, I'm also reaffirming those principles in my daily thought process when approaching my projects. I feel that we can get lost sometimes in the crazy technical world we live in but we all need to remember to go back to the principles that make stories believable. It has been great to find weekly clips that relate to those principles and point them out to the students. Its best for the students to see these principles being practiced in the real world. There are many times that we hear "Sure, when will I ever use that?" There are reasons that these principles exist. They do work, they help create believable characters and stories we can relate with.

On top of that, I have been doing a lot of my own research and taking my scheduled graduate courses. I have been spending a great deal of time focusing on my research with motion capture and how it's pipeline works. For starters we were able to get a hand motion capture system working. That can be seen here:

This system is much different than the Vicon optical system I have been mainly working with. This is more of a mechanical based system since you need to wear this crazy glove system in order for it to track the motions. It was really accurate to our surprise. For now we just tested the equipment but I look forward to looking to setting it up along with the optical system. Also I was able to work with the virtual camera rig we have at Drexel. You can see the camera in the image below:



This was another great experience. Basically, the "camera" that you see in this picture is the camera in your virtual space. After calibrating the camera you are able to enter the virtual world you created and film it! We were able to walk around the Coliseum we built last term. It was pretty unreal! Along with that I have continued researching the post production timeline by getting my hands dirty with Motion Builder. The software is actually a pretty powerful piece for animators. I was able to learn the best approach to altering data and creating seamless cycles. I'm currently researching how to work with props and also the best way to combine motion. During the gladiator development I was able to come up with a solution but I feel there is a more efficient way to approach this process. I'm hoping that once I get a good feel of this process, I can create a piece for my reel. Should be fun!

On top of that I have been helping a lot with troubleshooting some computer issues, jumping into the basics of the VFX software package Houdini, and reading a lot for my classes. Needless to say it has been busy and things in the next few weeks are going to be quite crazy. I believe our gaming group has come up with a project that can turn into something exciting. I hope to share more details about that soon. On that note, I need to get some grading done! Look forward to sharing more info soon and Happy Fall! Go enjoy some honey crisp apples.

Just a few thoughts

Believe it or not, the end of the term has come and gone. It's even harder to believe that it has been a full year since I started my graduate degree at Drexel.

Over three years ago I started my search looking to expand my education in the Digital Media field. I always have had an interest in the CG world but never really knew the specifics as to where I may fit in. It was crazy spending several months looking at schools all across the United States. This is also coming from a student who said, “I’ll never go back to school”. I’m glad that I changed my mind on that front.

Within a month of moving back up to New Jersey I toured Drexel University and took a look at their Master's Program. One of the biggest things they offered was an introductory year into the field. This was important since I didn’t have much experience with the technical aspects but have been exposed to some of the theory involved. Drexel was one of the few school's that offered this and also offered a program that was a mix of different digital areas. It really turned out to be the perfect fit.

I now sit here excited to see where the next few years are heading. I find my self saying this phrase a lot "We all reach the goal we want, but sometimes the path may have some side streets. Sometimes we may get lucky and hit that one way street but in my opinion, it’s those side streets that make you stronger". I found this to be the case for me over the past few years. I had worked at company that was a dream of mine and I’m still very fortunate for the opportunity it presented. Achieving this goal at a young age put a lot of perspective on what I wanted to do in life. I was able to focus on different aspects of the field and see what else also drove my passion to create new experiences. In the end, it’s passion that drives us to do what we want to do.

My first class at Drexel was entitled "Computer Animation 1". I was really excited but also really unsure as to how I can approach this class since I had no experience with CG at all! The morning of my first class I was walking to campus and received an email on my phone saying that class had been canceled and that the first weeks assignment was due the following week. I spent the week in a crash course in a program I never opened and only saw in behind the scene videos. In the end, I finished that assignment and my crazy journey involving computer graphics started. A year later, I'm now scheduled to teach this class and pass on the information I have learned from all the talented people in my program.

Teaching is something that I have really grown an interest in since my times working down in Orlando. There is so much that one can learn from working for a major corporation and also working as an independent contractor for them. I went through and learned a lot over those few years. It makes me wonder how entry-level artists would be if we all just "pay it forward". Therefore, I'm really looking forward to the challenge of teaching and hopefully passing along the information I have learned.

So what is the true meaning behind this post you ask? Well in the end, it really is about paths and how we choose direction in life. It's funny; I recently watched the film The Adjustment Bureau. This film threw me for a huge loop (I highly recommend it)! I thought it was going to be another Bourne Identity action thriller but it was something completely different. It's all about our paths and how we make them. This is the ending quote to that film (spoiler alert?):

"Most people live life on the path we set for them. Too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while people like you come along and knock down all the obstacles we put in your way. People who realize free will is a gift, you'll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that's The Chairman's real plan. And maybe, one day, we won't write the plan. You will."

Exploring that other path and taking that step is one of the scariest things you can ever do in my opinion. Pulling yourself out of the norm and putting yourself on another path is crazy right?! I mean why would I leave my comfort zone? I have left my comfort zone quite a few times and sometimes it works and other times it hasn’t. Though, in the end, leaving that comfort zone has made me stronger. If I had any advice for anyone, it would be, give it a shot! Take that side street towards the end goal. That side street is filled with experience's that may be good or bad. In the end, you will become wiser and figure out what street to take in the future.

One last thing, (OH NOOO!), surround yourself with inspiration in whatever you do. For me, I can’t go a day without listening to music, watching an animated short or talking to family/friends. This past year was crazy for me traveling too or having family and friends visit. It made me realize how lucky I am to have such awesome people in my life. You know who you are, and I hope you are reading this; just want to say "Thanks". With that, we need more just general acts of gratitude in this world. On that note, I read an interesting chapter in a book recently entitled “Happiness Hacks” but more on that later.

Whew, that was a long post! This upcoming year is another big year in development and I look forward to sharing it with you all. See you in a week when things get back to the normal grind.

Give a listen to Nate Morgan – Notes on Progress / The Twilight Singers –There’s Been An Accident

The Summer Continues!

It is hard to believe that the summer term is slowly coming to an end but we are in the final weeks of development. Over the past few months I have been challenged in many different ways between the two classes I am taking. My organic modeling class has challenged me to think about poly flow and edge flow in a whole new way. Its amazing to see what type of detail you can achieve with just spinning a few edges and making sure that all models avoid a dense mesh. I'm currently in production on my final creature project. This character is going to be mainly humanoid but it will be a mixture of a bull, snake, and human. I'm really looking forward to setting the mesh up in maya and then bringing it into ZBrush. I have always wanted to explore the possibilities of that software and this seems like the perfect project to start with.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I am currently working on a gladiator fighting game with some fellow students and it has been a great experience thus far. The biggest "hump" I am trying to overcome is motion capture data. I have been put in charge of the development process for this pipeline and it's quite a learning curve. A lot of people may think it's a simple process but it is far from that. There are a lot of different variables that need to be considered when setting up your models in Maya and also pulling the data in from Vicon Blade. I hope to do a video tutorial once I get a good workflow down.

Thats a small update for now! I hope to get some photo's of the project soon but until then, enjoy the rest of your summer!