“Bedtime Stories” by Cinesite
Conference:
- SIGGRAPH 2009 More animation videos from SIGGRAPH 2009:
Title:
- Bedtime Stories
Director(s):
Company / Institution / Agency:
- Cinesite
Description:
This visual effects sequence, from “Bedtime Stories,” features an entirely computer-generated space amphitheater environment, complete with CG crowds.
The space environment, including a series of spaceships, was created in 3D. The ships were positioned and animated in 2D to create individual trajectories. Nebulae were positioned on a series of cards to create parallax and perspective.
Concept designs for the space station arena were created by the visual effects team. They created looks and pre-visualisations for the arena, crowd, spotlights, and a Jumbotron screen. Everything except the actors is part of a 360-degree, fully digital environment.
Procedural animation was added to the limited library of motion capture to add more variety in actions and poses to the CG crowd. A single master “brain” drove the entire crowd with simple controls. This allowed for interactive, intelligent, and varied behavior while remaining entirely directable.
The strange-looking monster is a combination of whale, shark, and spider; he has a large fleshy body, small underdeveloped limbs, and a fish-like tail. He was fully hand animated, and several control rigs were developed to facilitate animation of the eight-legged, 12-tentacled creature.
References for the monster’s skin texture included chicken legs in jelly, to get a feel for how skin looks and moves. It was important to get this right, so that movements of the monster would result in a realistic wobbling, rippling, and spraying effect on the surface.
Software:
3d equaliser, Maya 2008, Shake, Nuke MotionWarping custom software
Additional Contributors:
Director: Adam Shankman
