Artist Spotlight: Blur Studio 


2D vs. 3D model comparison

June 09, 2003 -- Blur Studio, based in Venice Calif., had the daunting task of taking the hugely popular Nickelodeon SpongeBob Square Pants 2D animated hit TV series and turning it into a four and one-half minute stereoscopic, computer-animated ride film. The ride film has just launched at five Paramount Parks across the United States. Blur also created an 8-minute "PreShow" for the Parks.

Blur Studio's animation team worked closely with Nickelodeon to adapt the SpongeBob? characters to the ride format. The main challenge was to retain the look and feel of the 2D cel-animated cartoon characters and turn it into an exciting 3D-animation experience. SplutterFish spoke to Paul Taylor, co-Director and CG Supervisor at Blur Studio on the SpongeBob? SquarePants? ride film about the rendering aspects of the project.

SplutterFish: Can you tell readers about the new Brazil r/s 2D toon shader that was used on the project, and its overall benefits to the production?

Paul Taylor: Brazil r/s serves facility wide at Blur as the principal rendering technology on our myriad projects ranging from live action and computer animated features, commercials, theme park attraction films, game cinematics and studio test projects.

Although Brazil already featured a toon shader on the SpongeBob? ride film we needed a bit more control over the inking process. We enlisted SplutterFish to write us custom "advanced control' software features that allowed us to fine tune the way Brazil applied the ink to the characters. We used Brazil's toon shader to render most of the final backgrounds and all of the final characters. For 3D gag shots where a character's hand extends into the audience's face we needed the inking line to gradually shift from thick to thin. Brazil has a feature that allows you to set a range based on the camera. This feature is now shipping with the latest version of Brazil.



SF: Can you tell us about some of the rendering challenges of the project, and specifically those related to the creation of ride films?

PT: The biggest challenge we faced on the film was rendering the entire project in 3D for projection in stereo. Instead of rendering 8,000 2K frames we had to render 16,000 2K frames. And that did not include layers. That was only final frames. To create a credible stereo effect meant we also had to make sure all of the 3D gags worked. Interesting 3D gags in the SpongeBob? ride film include: SpongeBob? petting jellyfish; a titanium tipped ripping saw buzzing in your face; a paddle ball (an homage to one of the first live-action 3D gags); Plankton flying around on a hover platform, etc. This required a lot of testing. We used polarized glasses and ran back the frames on our computers to see if the gags worked. We also had to make sure that the transitions between shots were seamless. Typically ride films try to simulate one long camera move. We were able to have cuts in our film, which is unique. However, we did try to maintain a flow between shots.

SF: From a rendering perspective, can you describe the particular challenges the Blur animation team faced in retaining the look of the cel-animated characters from the TV show and translating them into computer animated images?

PT: All of the characters in the SpongeBob? TV series act and move a certain way. The characters are always being shown from a certain angle, squashing and stretching. Squashing and stretching are two classic animation techniques discovered by Golden Age Disney animators. Think of a rubber ball bouncing. When the ball hits the ground it squashes then stretches as it rebounds. Finally, it resumes its "at rest" shape. This principle can be applied to cheating nearly anything in 2D cel-animation - heads, hands, bodies, feet, etc. So, one of the challenges for us in being able to render a "toon-shaded' effect was to study the reference closely in order to stay "on model" -- as true to the model as possible. Fortunately, Nickelodeon provided us with ample reference. They dubbed copies of the entire three seasons of the TV show so we saturated ourselves with that. Then we tried to match our models.

SF: Are there any other comments you care to provide on Brazil's overall performance on the project?

PT: We basically could not have stayed true to the look and feel of the SpongeBob? TV series without the use of Brazil. We also relied on Brazil's ability to render specific elements for compositing. For example the reflections in the floor of Plankton's Lair were rendered as a separate pass. Having one of the two founders of SplutterFish writing custom render code for us was crucial as well.  [ Editor's Note: This code has been integrated into Brazil r/s 1.0 and is now in the current shipping build. ]  While we still used 3ds max's built in scanline renderer for some of the backgrounds, it was just a matter of knowing the right time to bring in the heavy weapons Brazil provided.