HOW good is Gollum's animation?

[wgreenlee1]

:beer:

[Solesurvivor]

now that's fantastic news :thumbsup: (my brother has a hearing loss at the same level)

[ceql]

(!!!) that's amazing :D :D

[erilaz]

Yeah my mum has bad hearing loss, and she LOVED gollum. She thought his dialogue was brilliant.

Very well done indeed!!:D

[fred_bock]

Yeah !! Gollum do the evollution !!

:beer:

[The Cross]

Gollum totally blew me away, to the point where i thought he was a beautiful creature. and i can't wait to see more of that kind of character animation/render in the next Lord of the Rings.

But can anyone tell me, if there is such thing, as a more impressive digital effect than Golloum, in the presant time, to ever hit the screen ?

Probably not.

[Valkyrien]

wow, that's really something. Even though i don't read lips, I'm always rather annoyed that more attention doesn't go into synching animations more precisely:)

[jschleifer]

Yeah, it's a new technology we introduced called: UMASSK!

Facinating technology, really.. a bit complicated to understand tho. Basically, it involves digitizing the sound files so they're easy to access in the computer. Then those digitized files are placed in your scene file, and the animator listens to them over and over again. Noting the beats, and the emphasis on the tonal qualities, the animator figures out the basic phonic qualities of the sound file and ensures the facial shapes adheres to the tonal incantation directed by the digital phonetical approximiation. Once the phonically induced motion is created, the animator will then review the results and make minor to major adjustments as necessary, repeating the process until correct..

btw.. U.M.A.S.S.K! stands for:
Use the Mirror And Set Some Keys!

:)

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by jschleifer
Yeah, it's a new technology we introduced called: UMASSK!

Facinating technology, really.. a bit complicated to understand tho. Basically, it involves digitizing the sound files so they're easy to access in the computer. Then those digitized files are placed in your scene file, and the animator listens to them over and over again. Noting the beats, and the emphasis on the tonal qualities, the animator figures out the basic phonic qualities of the sound file and ensures the facial shapes adheres to the tonal incantation directed by the digital phonetical approximiation. Once the phonically induced motion is created, the animator will then review the results and make minor to major adjustments as necessary, repeating the process until correct..

btw.. U.M.A.S.S.K! stands for:
Use the Mirror And Set Some Keys!

:)

LMAO!!!

Jason!!!! Welcome back....havent seen ya on the boards in a lil while!

that is a major achievement btw......UMASSK! Did you program that one yourself......lol

should package it like massive.......... i can see it now!

WETA DIGITAL UMASSK CHARACTER ANIMATION KIT!
Contents: one desk sized mirror.
Price: $9,999 ($1,000 off if you give up smoking)


im telling you man!!! It would sell!

[Peter Reynolds]

I think we've got a copy of UMASSK, although I'm not sure if its licensed.

Got it from some guy who was pushing cracked copies of
BayRaitt in a Box (tm)

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by Peter Reynolds
I think we've got a copy of UMASSK, although I'm not sure if its licensed.

Got it from some guy who was pushing cracked copies of
BayRaitt in a Box (tm)

BayRaitt in a Box????? Where do you stick the dongle?????

Sorry Bay, i couldnt resist ;)

[zappenduster]

ok i liked gollum also very much but one thing did disapoint me

in one of the last scenes the 2 guys and gollum walk through a forest and at the ground all around are needles from the trees when the 2 friends step on them they move and whirl and so on but when gollum crouches arround none of them did react to him (which shouldnt be a great prob for some particle animation) that was what did crash the scene for me =(

[fred_bock]

I'm searching for "WETA DIGITAL UMASSK CHARACTER ANIMATION KIT!" on Turbo Squid ... but i'm not sure to find it !!
is it in beta or something still ???



:beer:

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by zappenduster
ok i liked gollum also very much but one thing did disapoint me

in one of the last scenes the 2 guys and gollum walk through a forest and at the ground all around are needles from the trees when the 2 friends step on them they move and whirl and so on but when gollum crouches arround none of them did react to him (which shouldnt be a great prob for some particle animation) that was what did crash the scene for me =(

well i think the reason for that is.............his feet dont talk, nor do they emit emotion......the focal point (for everyone else watching it) was his face. If a great scene was totally ruined for you because his feet didnt affect the ground as you would have anticipated then you wouldnt have liked it if it was perfect, because you would have found another thing to nitpick.

as i recall, all the outdoor gollum scenes were plated using Andy in the shot.........so his feet would have displaced the needles just fine.........you sure you werent just looking for there to be something wrong?

[Nicodemus]

Gollum was exceptional. My wife absolutely accepted him as a real character. She felt sorry for him which is the best compliment you can get.

[Laa-Yosh]

Originally posted by Gentle Fury
BayRaitt in a Box????? Where do you stick the dongle?????


The only information we've received is that pirate copies are wearing an eye patch... ;)

[draconix]

Look...for...eye...patch...

Ok, got it! ;)

[zappenduster]

Originally posted by Gentle Fury
well i think the reason for that is.............his feet dont talk, nor do they emit emotion......the focal point (for everyone else watching it) was his face. If a great scene was totally ruined for you because his feet didnt affect the ground as you would have anticipated then you wouldnt have liked it if it was perfect, because you would have found another thing to nitpick.

as i recall, all the outdoor gollum scenes were plated using Andy in the shot.........so his feet would have displaced the needles just fine.........you sure you werent just looking for there to be something wrong?

it ruined for me somehow the realism cause i did know he was a cg character and if it doesnt interact with it world something gets lost for me

and i didnt look for errors it was just directly popping into my mind when i saw him walking there and i couldnt get over it =(

[t-toe]

hey, I noticed that gollum's hands and feet didn't interact with the plate in that shot too, but it didn't detract from the overall experience for me. for starters: the motion tracking on that shot is simply flawless, and as long a shot as it is, that must have taken a lot of dedication. also, we have to remember that special effects aren't about looking real, they're about showing you things that are impossible to realize otherwise. (Sadly, Lucas seems to have forgotten that.) Gollum went WAY above and beyond the call of duty there.

--t.toe

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by t-toe
hey, I noticed that gollum's hands and feet didn't interact with the plate in that shot too, but it didn't detract from the overall experience for me. for starters: the motion tracking on that shot is simply flawless, and as long a shot as it is, that must have taken a lot of dedication. also, we have to remember that special effects aren't about looking real, they're about showing you things that are impossible to realize otherwise. (Sadly, Lucas seems to have forgotten that.) Gollum went WAY above and beyond the call of duty there.

--t.toe

agreed......but hey i guess there are also people that look at actors shoes and say it ruined the scene because they didnt match his pants............the performance is in the face ;)

[spiraloid]

Originally posted by Laa-Yosh
The only information we've received is that pirate copies are wearing an eye patch... ;)


HAH!!

this explains so much!! I've had this nagging pain in my rear, I've been obsessed with box shaped objects, and my depth perception seems like it had gone to hell.

I thought it was all part of working with computers...

but now you tell me that I've been jammed in a box and sold as a software system, that I've got a dongle crammed in my ass and that I've been wearing an eyepatch all this time.

man, it's good to have friends to point his stuff out!!

;)

-b

[ThirdEye]

LOL@Tamas and Bay :D

[zappenduster]

Originally posted by Gentle Fury
agreed......but hey i guess there are also people that look at actors shoes and say it ruined the scene because they didnt match his pants............the performance is in the face ;)

thats not it its just a glitch that didnt had to be with 300million budget

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by spiraloid
HAH!!

this explains so much!! I've had this nagging pain in my rear, I've been obsessed with box shaped objects, and my depth perception seems like it had gone to hell.

I thought it was all part of working with computers...

but now you tell me that I've been jammed in a box and sold as a software system, that I've got a dongle crammed in my ass and that I've been wearing an eyepatch all this time.

man, it's good to have friends to point his stuff out!!

;)

-b

omg, so the real bay raitt is a bootleged copy??????

so where is the original stored??? Somewhere in carbonite im sure!!!!

i knew it, in order for lucas to be able to compete with WETA he has been hiring bounty hunters to steal all the talent and replace them with imitations!!!!!!!

damn bounty hunters!!!

[Ben Shore]

Bravo Gollum! :bounce:

Out of curiosity does anyone know if Gollum used any sort of automated system for lip sync (even preliminarily)... I'm assuming that earlier tech post was sarcastic (I'm never 100% sure when it's in type).

I just ask since the acting was of course mo cap, and I'm sure they used whatever tools they possibly could to streamline and enhance the process... I've seen facial motion capture, but it seems like for the most part it doesn't work well.

[jschleifer]

The facial animation was 100% keyframed, the body was every technique possible.. some was mocap, some was rotomated, some was keyframed.

-jason

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by Ben Shore
Bravo Gollum! :bounce:

Out of curiosity does anyone know if Gollum used any sort of automated system for lip sync (even preliminarily)... I'm assuming that earlier tech post was sarcastic (I'm never 100% sure when it's in type).

I just ask since the acting was of course mo cap, and I'm sure they used whatever tools they possibly could to streamline and enhance the process... I've seen facial motion capture, but it seems like for the most part it doesn't work well.

well jason (the one that brought up the concept of UMASSK), actually works at WETA.....and was one of the setup gods for Gollum........so i think he knows whats goin on..........facial was keyframe animation :)

[Gentle Fury]

Originally posted by jschleifer
The facial animation was 100% keyframed, the body was every technique possible.. some was mocap, some was rotomated, some was keyframed.

-jason

ok, well ya beat me to it as i was posting.......right from the horses mouth so to speak ;)

i never really understood that saying.....horses dont talk!!!! and i cant think of anything pleasent you could find in ones mouth!!!

ok, it is too late...im going to bed ;)

[Ben Shore]

Thanks for keying me in :p

In that case double bravo! Obviously that's some sweet animation.

It's interesting though, that mocap seems to be working so well at the macro level but nothing has been developed at the micro level (I'm reminded of the Final Fantasy movie which was hand-keyed for hands and face and mocap for the rest).
Or perhaps face and hand animation just works better when it's done by hand (IE it simply looks "better-than-life" when it's done so maticulously), whereas with full body animation it's hard to pick up all the subtle movement in such a complex system.

Course I'm just speculating, I have no direct experience useing mocap (a little indirect...)

[The Cross]

That part when Gollum had Frodo on his back, and he saw that ring. The look on his face as he was huffing and puffing in the struggle definatly left a mark on my memory.

[Peter Reynolds]

The whole of Gollum's performance left a mark on me. It felt so refreshing to see a focus on pure performance from a team of artists that did more than deliver. Talk about nailing it.

Sometimes with other films, I get that feeling that a team of marketers came in and had to put their 2cents in:

"Hey that looks cool - but can you make it orange - our target demographics indicate orange is the best choice. Oh, and while your at it, can you make it do this. And another thing, we don't like its reaction here - we'd rather it say..."

[timgolnik]

I was reading cinefex, and it had an interesting quote: "when you're done with everything, grab all of your keyframes and slide them two frames forward. trust me. it works. you make the shape before the sound".

thought that was funny.

also, i did notice the shot in the woods, and it's also been a gripe of mine. they may have not used serkis in the actual woods for this shot, and merely done a shot of him for reference, as he didn't need to interact with the hobbits in the shot. i dont know how they actually shot it, so its all speculation, but it did seem like he was walking on a plate of glass suspended over the ground. it's funny considering the amount of interaction he has with water, and how PERFECT those shots are.
all in all, it really didn't detract me from the scene.

[jschleifer]

Originally posted by timgolnik
I was reading cinefex, and it had an interesting quote: "when you're done with everything, grab all of your keyframes and slide them two frames forward. trust me. it works. you make the shape before the sound".



It's not always quite that simple.. but yes, you should "show" the sound a frame or two before you hear it.. sometimes 4.. sometimes right on.

:)

[Phearielord]

The bit where Gollum crawl in the woods immediately jumped out at me.
while he was walking, I automatically looked at his feet, and noticed the same thing as everybody else.
It doesn't seem to disturb the needle.
Though there does seem to be some masking going on, to show depth.
Yet as soon as I spotted it, noting that that bit could have been done a bit differently, I immediately put it out of my mind, for I knew that something that minor would go 99.9% unnoticed by the rest of the people watching the movie.
The scene just sucked me right back in.

The UMASSK tool sounds facinating......
Tools like that makes a job so much easier...

well done Weta:thumbsup:

[Redf]

Bottomline: Best animation of all time.:beer:

[Solesurvivor]

Amen :D

[pearson]

Originally posted by Ben Shore
It's interesting though, that mocap seems to be working so well at the macro level but nothing has been developed at the micro level...

Heh! Way back in '97 I was interning at SGI and got to see a Protozoa facial mocap demo, except that it was running in realtime. The character (http://cube.phlatt.net/home/spiraloid/tutorial/morph_applied.html) was made by none other that Bay himself! Not that I knew that at the time, of course. I am surprised that in all this time facial mocap hasn't improved enough to be used more.

Since my good buddy ran our mocap studio for a couple of years, I'll tell you what I think could be the problem. After they are all done cleaning up the captured data, they run a smooth filter on it to smooth out the little pops/spikes in the data. I think this is what would really kill the subtlety of facial animation.

Another issue is that sometimes over-exagerated motion looks more believable than realistic motion.

Just my 2p

[jschleifer]

Facial animation and traditional keyframed animation doesn't have to be over-exagerated.. you can animate extremely realistically if you try.

The problem with facial mocap and mocap in general is that you don't get a chance to really hit the exact frames you want to hit. A talented animator can make something look just as "real" as mocap, and have more control than someone trying to capture a performance.

Imagine if you were to tell the mocap performer "okay, in this shot, you need to hold on to that live actor's coat. Just hold your hand right there.. no.. 2 pixesl higher.. no.. higher.. lower.. 1 pixel to the left.. okay.. now hold it.. wait, you're off again. Okay, hold on.. no, you're off. at frame 16 you need to push him 27 pixels screen left.. Okay.. no, farther.. no, you missed the frame.. okay okay, it's on this beat.. nono..."

you can't do that, but you CAN do it with keyframed animation.

Of course, you could also edit hte mocap data in post, but you'd end up having to blend between multiple capture takes.. yeeks! :)

[bentllama]

Originally posted by jschleifer
The problem with facial mocap and mocap in general is that you don't get a chance to really hit the exact frames you want to hit. A talented animator can make something look just as "real" as mocap, and have more control than someone trying to capture a performance.

Hear hear!

Not to mention dependencies with Mocap delivery, pickup shoots, data processing, incorporating it into your pipeline, accurately directing the talent, paying for talent/studio time...etc etc...

mocap has its place, and I have worked with it in the past...but the 2d animator in me prefers traditional keyframing... :)

:beer:

[Scandell]

Is it me or did the first scene with Gollum have a lower level of quality to it. It seemed the compositing was bad and his movements were lame. Maybe the moon lit atmosphere made him look strange. I dont know.

I hope i didnt offend anyone by saying this. I know there are a lot of you who have Gollum bed sheets, underwear, and have ordered crates of Gollums new breakfast cereal.

[arctor]

Gentle Fury >
IIRC "straight from the horse's mouth" comes from buying horses :)
rather than taking the word of the guy selling it, you verify the quality(health) of the horse yourself, and a very good way to do that is to inspect the mouth - it's a good indicator of illness etc.
so you're getting it (quality info) > straight from the horses mouth.


but back to Gollum....
there were plenty of moments when Gollum didn't seem well integrated with the live action plates, or with himself...but I think if I didn't know anything about CG I wouldn't have noticed them much...
few of these moments had anything to do with the animation, mostly the compositing:
as mentioned the scene in the woods at the end, the diffused lighting meant not much of a contact shadow...so he looks like he's floating a bit, a better shadow would have helped hide the lack of interaction with the ground.
the scene where he is hugging himself, his hand stroking his shoulderblade (I think it's just after Faramir has caught him), the contact between his hand/fingers and his back seemed blurry - as if to hide crashing etc...
there is a weird moment when Gollum is bringing Frodo and Sam to the Black Gate...he hops along from screen left then up onto a boulder, turns and looks for approval from the Hobbits...the eyelines here are way off...

but again most of this would never be noticed by 99.9% of the audience...I noticed these (and other) errors the first time I watched the film...but the second and third time I just watched the movie :)
Gollum is by far the best CG character to date, and is integrated so well - so much of the time, that most of the above isn't worth pointing out....

[xynaria]

Something I felt when watching a clip on tv the other day after only seeing the film the once when it came out, is that it's possible that Gollum being CG actually adds almost subconciously to his prescence in that it adds an 'air of magic' to him, that even if such a creature existed in real life, it probably couldn't have on screen. Obviously this wouldn't work if it was badly done but it still looks benchmark to me and is testament to the fact that it would be easyish to pick holes in various areas of the whole performance/composite but I never found myself doing that whilst watching, only on seeing stills or seeing some bits out of context. :)

[t-toe]

getting back to editing mocapped data:

you say it would be very difficult to have a mocapped actor hold onto an actor's cloth... now, I have absolutely no experience working with motion capture, but couldn't you delete the keyframes on the hand that is supposed to be at an exact location and keyframe only that hand? to me that sounds pretty economical, but I could be wrong...

--t.toe

[amygdalae]

Originally posted by Scandell
Is it me or did the first scene with Gollum have a lower level of quality to it. It seemed the compositing was bad and his movements were lame. Maybe the moon lit atmosphere made him look strange. I dont know.


The first scene was probably one of the more difficult because of the level of interaction with the actors and the amount of roto. I'm very impressed with what everyone at WETA pulled off : )

Gollum - brought to you in part by the animator behind 'Balloon Dog' haha.

LOTR was great, I was really proud to be involved even though SPI was just helping out towards the end. Cheers Jason, and all.

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