Meet the Artist: Spencer Cook

#55

Hi Anthony,
Great questions, I’ll tackle them one at a time;

  1. We always try to give the audience something new and exciting in every film we work on. The hope with character animation is that the audience doesn’t “understand” what they are seeing. By that I mean that I hope the audience isn’t watching the film and saying “wow, that’s some good (or bad) animation”. We want people to be swept up in the story and situations not looking for effects. In pushing the limits of what we had done before we run the risk of going too far and a shot ends up looking fake, but we don’t do this stuff to play it safe. We may not hit a home run every time but we try. There is so much information out there about effects work that I think audiences are pretty savy about what they are seeing. There are certainly more people today criticizing or complementing effects work than there were 10 years ago.

  2. You can refer to my reply to Bracer who originally asked the question about webbing but basically you are correct, it is displacement maps.

  3. I’m so glad you enjoyed sandman’s birth sequence. I was very nervous about that sequence. It’s such an emotional moment in the movie that it would have been bad if the audience didn’t buy the animation and efx. Personally, I was very touched by it. I think the emotion comes across as Sam intended. The success of that sequence is due to Sam Raimi’s great direction.

  4. Of the current films I’ve seen I’m very impressed with Davey Jones from Pirates. That character fit into that world so well and has such incredible screen presence. Kudos to the ILM team. I still get a thrill from watching any of Ray Harryhausen’s films. His work is what inspired me to choose animation as a career and I’m still in awe of what he did.

  5. For animation we only use Maya. XSI sounds like a great package but I usually think less about the software and more about who is using it. A good animator will get good results from any software.

  6. Which system to use depends on the character and who is setting it up. Spider-man is all point weighting (from Koji Morihiro), it has worked so well from the first movie that we have never changed it. Venom had a muscle system(from Erik Miller) and it worked great as well. As long as the final results looks good I’m fine with either system.

thanks,
Spencer

#56

Thanks so much kunal, I will pass along your kind words. It truly was a team effort and I’m happy to have been a part of it.

Spencer

#57

Hey again modelviz,
The camera work for is usually part of the animation process (if it doesn’t involve a matchmove). Many times we get previs or animatics that give us some direction to start with. After that it’s part of the character animator’s job to animate the camera as well as the character.

thanks,
Spencer

#58

Hi Elfren,
I’m glad to be able to chat with you guys, thanks for the questions.

  1. Our team, like any other studio, is made up of the best artists from all over the world. It’s not important where you were born, if you are good at what you do we want you on the team.
  2. There are some other projects in the works now, it’s too early to say more than that.

thanks,
Spencer

#59

Hey Rick,
Nice to hear from you. It sure has been a while. I think the last time we worked together was on the Starship Troopers tv series? That was a pretty fun time at Flat Earth prod. Thanks for the kind words, it’s great to hear compliments from someone with your experience.

hope you are doing well,
Spencer

#60

Hi Render3Dean,
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed the work. I was always interested in character animation from a very young age. Specifically, stop motion animation. I was inspired by the original Willis O’Brien “King Kong” and Ray Harryhausen’s “7th Voyage of Sinbad”. Somewhere around 11 years old I began experimenting with stop-motion using my Dad’s super-8 camera and clay figures and G.I. Joes. I went to The School of Visual Arts in New York City and majored in film and video production. I made a stop-motion short as a thesis project and used that to apply for work with New York commercial animation studios (this was in 1985 before cg animation dominated the animation industry). To make a long story short, I spent many years as a stop-motion animator in commercials and tv shows then in 1998 I moved to Los Angeles because I wanted to work on features. The transition from stop-mo to digital animation was not easy at first but I stuck with it. I worked at Digital Domain, Flat Earth and eventually Imageworks where I started as an intermediate level animator.
At Imageworks we use Maya for animation. Every studio has their preferred software, some create it themselves. When you are hired by a studio they will want you to work with their preferred software. Allowing everybody to use whichever software they want would be a nightmare pipeline to try and manage.

thanks for your questions,
Spencer

#61

Hi again CB_3D,
Spider-man’s deformations are all point weighting from Koji Morihiro. He set it up for the first movie and we have been using it ever since. I’ll let him know that you enjoy his fine work.

thanks,
Spencer

#62

Thank you for your reply. One more question, slightly similar. You may not know the answer, but do they also solely use maya for the modelling (and zbrush of course)?

Once again. Superb Work. Keep it up!

#63

[b]Hi,

I am sorry to ask rigging related questions, but this is my only chance to get some info from you!

ReInsisting on CB_3D 's ques : You said that Koji Morihiro used all point weigting on spiderman Rigs. I would think though that surely there is something else going on ,on top of weighting that helps maintain such believable volume/and gives smooth deformations. Is it some blendshapes that were triggered based on joint rotations/pose or some other technique. If its all only weigting and no shapes , then was it based on multiple joints being pushed/pulled internally,depending on the pose(which would be so difficult to setup m sure) ? Pls share the brief theory behind the setup if posssible :slight_smile:

And GREAT work, I was amazed by the technical output of the movie! It continues to inspire me to do much better work everyday!

Thanks for your time

[/b]

#64

Great job with Spiderman and Matrix. Each one is ground breaking in its own way and I love all of them. What the next project?

#65

Hello, I just wanted to say what a great film and congrats on such a success. And as many have already posted here, I just wanted to say that my favorite part was the sandman birth. I loved how soft the sand felt and how he was trying to come to grips that “okay im made of sand now…just need to pick myself and move on” lots of determination in that scene and as a growing animator I hope I can pull something like that off in the future. Great work! Also just wanted to thank you for giving us your time here. Thanks.

-Bryan

#66

Hi Spencer,

First I want to thank you for your time…

Well I entered VFX field almost 2 yrs ago, I work in Lebanon(Middle East).

The field is evolving here but still not as professional as what u guys do. I’m really eager to learn and improve in this field more. I would like to ask you, is it in any way possible for me to do training in one of the post production companies in the US? If yes how can I reach any, if not then what’s your advice for me in order to improve and reach the pro level…

#67

Here goes some critics about Spiderman III, its just my opinion thou.

Story was the weakest among the three films, I’d say the first film had the strongest storyline and the most clear to follow, but the third film has too much material and very little time devoted to each as if barely scratching the surface, never letting the audience really get involved emotionaly with anything. For example, the story with the sandman and his daughter and wife, so little screen time is given to them while it could have been a great subject to go deep with.

On direction, while I may not be quilified to criticise, as a mere member of the audience, I found some of the action sequences too crowded, the cutting and continuity was sometimes too hard to follow, specialy on the fight with harry and pete in the alleys, it was like they tried to pack in too much goodies into that sequence that it spoiled it all.

On animation, there was some minor stuff, one during the sandman born scene while hes getting up and falling, i think it would have needed more polish, it felt to me that it was somehow rushed in animation. also some of the shots with spidy just screamed computer animation, as they were too clean and perfect to fit into the live action set. As it is with CG animation in live action films, sometimes you need to add those little imperfections, like a few unclean arcs or maybe mess up those slow in/out a bit to make it more life like.

animation of the sandman in the final battle could have been better, I would have personaly added more weight and force to his punch. it was there but could have been pushed more to add more impact.

Overall, I enjoyed the film but the first spiderman remains my favorite.

#68

Hi Laven,
The Peter/Goblin fight (we called it pg sequence for short) was a mix of everything you mentioned. Some of the decisions of what technique to use were based on things like; how well do you see the actors, is it possible to shoot on location, is it possible for the actor or stuntman to perform the action. To clearly see the actors, some of the action was performed on a stage in front of a bluescreen. In animation we could manipulate the bluescreen plate to enhance the motion. In some cases we comped the actors face onto the animated character. This was a tricky process that involved animating the character then using that motion to program a motion control camera to photograph the actor’s face with the proper perspective changes. For some of the more complex action that no person could perform and no camera rig could photograph we went all digital. We tried to mix up the techniques and see the actors as much as possible. Time and money always figure into the decisions as well.
As far as render times; we generally render a shot in separate passes (and comp them together) so it’s difficult to quantify a time per shot or per frame. One general rule though is that if an element takes more than 2 hours to render then every effort is made to reduce that time. There were some shot elements that took as much as 7 or 8 hours to render. I hope that answers your questions.

thanks,
Spencer

#69

Hi JinJ,

Thanks for the questions, here you go;

  1. We are always on the look out for talented and enthusiastic young animators. It’s important to have a mix of veterans and beginners on each team. Where else will the beginners get the experience to become veterans one day? We have a training department here that helps get new folks up to speed on software, tools, pipeline, etc. It also depends on the time frame for the show. We probably wouldn’t have too many junior animators on “911” shows since we do have to push stuff out quickly. However, there are shows with a schedule of a year or more where juniors have time to ramp up to speed. Also, a junior animator would probably do more simple shots in the beginning.

  2. At Imageworks, once a modeler is done on a show we box them up and put them in storage. I’m kidding of course, ideally what happens is that they move on to another show. If there isn’t another show in house they can take a vacation, work on some internal projects or go to work at another studio. It all depends on the indivdual and the state of the facility at the time.

hope that answers your questions,
thanks,
Spencer

#70

I just found out some new info about render times from Michael May, one of our coordinators. Some of the very complex sand shots took as much as 12 hours per frame to render.

Spencer

#71

Mr. Cook,

To start, I just want to say thank you. You and your team have done a magnificent job with the Matrix movies, as well as the Spiderman movies (super huge ridiculous spiderman fan since I was born). Your fx are greatly inspiring and amazing! I have always had a passion for animation and I am getting ready to attend AAU online at the age of 26 (military service after highschool). I feel like I am a bit behind the curve because I have very little knowledge in the 3D animation world (messing with the downloadable version of 3DS Max as of late) and the animation/production language used. If you wouldn’t mind, I would just like to get your advice on some of the possible obstacles/problems that I may encounter as someone starting out “this late in the game” so to speak. Thank you ahead of time and keep the amazing work coming! Take care!

J

#72

Spencer,
Congrats on great work and great career.

Joe Piazzo
SVA Film, 1984

#73

Hi amitabhverma8,

Thanks, I glad to here you enjoyed our work. Thanks for the questions.

I think your first question is more of a personal preference. We animated all of the characters the best way we could to fit their indivdual personalities.

As to your second question, the amount of screentime for dark Spidey was based on the story that Sam Raimi wanted to tell. The advertising did focus alot on dark Spidey, mostly I guess because it’s a new element that audiences didn’t see in Spider-man 1 and 2.

To create a photo-real looking environment digitally it’s best to use as much real photography as possible. Scott Stokdyk, our visual effects supervisor, tries to design fx shots to include as much real elements as possible. Most of the time it’s a mix of plate photography, hi resolution stills, skillful model making, texture painting, matte painting, lighting and a critical eye for detail.

The best advice I can give to improve as an animator is this; animate what interests you not what you think other people want to see. Whether it’s cartoons, photoreal monsters or spaceships, you’ll do better work and be happier if you follow your interests. Also, study real world reference. Act out an action in front of a mirror or, better yet, videotape youself and study it frame by frame. If you are animating a creature, find an animal in the real world to get ideas from. Find nature footage of that animal and study it frame by frame and apply that to your animation. Read animation books like “The illusion of life” or Richard Williams “The animator’s survival kit” for basic animation principals. Most of all…animate, make mistakes, learn from your mistakes, be your own harshest critic and study human and animal body language.

Finally, I’m pretty sure there will be a Spider-Man 4. I don’t have any inside information on this yet but a basic rule in Hollywood is that if a movie makes money the studio will want to do it again. There are still tons of great Spidey stories to tell.

thanks,
Spencer

#74

Originally Posted by wotanist
[i]Hi Spencer,

I was wondering if there were any sequences that the director demanded which were too difficult to pull off and were dropped because of technical limitations, or would you say that you’ve met even the most outrageous demands?

My second question is about the CG Spiderman and Sandman? How many animation controls each do they have approximately, and how long did it take for rigging them?

Thirdly, how long did it take to render the most complex scene in the movie? Amongst the characters, I’m assuming that with Sandman’s complex shaders, he would have taken the longest to render. Whats the size of the renderfarm?

Finally, What were the specs of the Workstations the team was working on? Despite working on high end workstations, were there any scenes that may have crashed the workstations while working?[/i]

Hi again wotanist,

I can’t give you too many specific answers to your other questions but I’ll pass along what I can. The most complex sand scene took close to 12 hours per frame to render. We use a linux os on our workstations. Scene crashes are an unfortunate part of working on a computer. Sorry I can’t be more specific.

thanks,
Spencer