Putting an end to a brutally slow week for Pixar news, Disney announced their programming line-up for this year's D23 Expo, the official Disney fan event.
Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter will join other Disney VIPs onstage on Saturday, August 20 to provide "a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse at the exciting roster of projects on the horizon at The Walt Disney Studios."
While today's press release doesn't expressly mention any Pixar-specific presentation, I have a feeling this is where Pixar's secret November 2013 feature is going to be announced. You heard it here first.
The D23 Expo takes place August 19-21 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA.
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20 comments:
Oh boy, I hope your right about the 2013 project, maybe it will be that whole dinosaur movie idea!
The Incredibles 2
I hope they will dispell any rumors of a Toy Story 4
maybe newt will be back in production,that would be good
Well, it's confirmed the november 2013 film is NOT a sequel. But, after Ratatouille they announced all of there films from 2008-2012. So, they could announce an Incredibles 2, Toy Story 4, or Cars 3.
I think the days of them announcing their slate of films years in advance are long gone. They shot themselves in the foot with the whole Newt debacle and Cars2 and Brave's production problems.
What Jay, Doug and Jo said! I think it's highly probable they will reveal the november 2013 [dinosaur] project, I mean, we already know the exact release date...
Also I'd be pleased if they cleared the whole Toy Story 4 rumors, which I hope they're only that: rumors.
And I'd be delighted to hear newt will be back in production, but it's not likely to happen D: though I'm feeling excited now that I think of it as a possibility.
But please! No more sequels (unless it's The Incredibles 2)!!!
I'll be at Disneyland (which is in Aneheim) the first week of August. Too bad they won't be holding D23 then!
Hi I don't know where else to ask this question but many of you guys are huge Pixar fans so you might know but what does an animator do at Pixar? I look at the jobs section and that says they animate but who creates the characters in their software? DO animators animate & build the characters or is building up the characters on a computer a separate job? It even says in the qualifications section you don't even have to have computer animation experience wtf?
@last Anonymous: The animators add the motion to the characters. Making a computer animated film is a very large undertaking, and requires many people with highly specialized knowledge and talent.
The production pipeline is something like this:
The director comes up with an idea and writes and pitches a treatment. If that is improved, the story is written, usually in collaboration with the storyboard artists who sketch out the entire film.
When a sequence is approved, an "animatic" is created, with pictures of the storyboard edited together with a temporary soundtrack. In a way, the entire movie is edited together before any animation even begins.
At some point, the character designers begin designing characters. They work with the director and begin drawing ideas of how the characters might look. If the director likes a particular design and approves it, the designer will sketch the character from several angles (front, side, etc.) and give these sketches to a sculptor or modeler.
A sculptor might take these pictures and create a three-dimensional "maquette" of the character out of clay. Then, everything is handed over to a modeler. The modeler creates the character on the computer. All characters and objects are described on the computer as sets of points (vertices) and triangles or rectangles. Someone else may design the character's costumes.
Once the character is "modeled" on the computer, someone will design its materials or "shaders." A shader is a program written in Pixar's special language that describes how light reflects off of a surface. Using it, you can make a computer model look like it is made out of metal, cloth, skin, or anything else.
At some point, the model of the character is given to a rigger. The rigger will create a rig for the character. The character is given "bones" and other controls, which Pixar calls "avars." An animator can use these controls to move the model, similar to using controls on a puppet.
Other modelers will create the room or landscape and props used in a scene. Someone will write shaders for these as well.
Eventually, the animator is given the character models as well as the scene. The animator's job is to give motion to the characters. This is done by moving the character into a certain pose, setting a "keyframe," and moving on to another pose. The computer will automatically move the character from one pose to another. The animator generally animates dialog by listening to the recorded voices and animating the character to look as if it is speaking it.
Somewhere along the line, someone will position a virtual camera, and possibly animate it as needed. Then, the scene will be "rendered," which is the process of calculating the color of each pixel in the frame. This takes a large amount of processing power, and is done by a number of linked computers called a "renderfarm."
So, that's a brief overview of most of the process. Woops, did I say "brief?"
Well, I am an animation fan, computer animation enthusiast, and amateur programmer. I could have gone on and on (even more, I mean!)
@last Anonymous once again:
Sorry that I missed your last question.
Pixar is looking for great animators who can breathe life into nonexistent characters. They don't care about the medium, so they hire traditional (pencil and paper) animators and stop-motion animators as well as computer animators.
If they think you are a good animator, they believe that you will be at computer animation as well, since computers are just another medium.
Once you are hired, they will teach you how to animate using a computer.
But, that doesn't mean you can get hired without any animation experience.
To the question about what an animator at Pixar does. I was lucky enough to take part in the Pixar VanArts class in New York. The character animator does that, simply animates. They use points and spline charts to move the character's body around. Separate people design the character, make a 3D model of it, "rig" it (give it bones and make it move correctly). The animator's main job is to make the character move, they may do some other actions here or there. But they shouldn't be responsible for rigging or modeling the character. Generally speaking of course. :)
To answer Anonymous 3's question, modelers build the characters and objects from scratch.
There are many non-techno or non-art jobs at a computer animation film studio: Chef/cook, gift store cashier, janitor, maintenance, security guard...
Dear Anonymous, Number 2. Hi, I'm Anonymous Number 3. Yes, creating the characters is a separate job from animating. In fact, creating the character is separated into different jobs itself! You have concept artists work on character designs. Then someone builds a sculpture of what the character would look like in 3D. Then someone builds the model in the computer. And someone does the "rigging" which sets up how the 3D character model moves. Then it's handed off to animators.
@Anonymous #1: Keeping a production secret isn't terribly easy. Actors expect to be able to say what project they're working on. Animators are a bit less picky, but it's still hard to not be able to tell your friends what you do at work. Plus, investors want to know what films are on the horizon. Also, the number of people who really care about changes in directors on a Pixar film is both fairly small and made up mostly of people who will see the film anyways.
@Anonymous #2: There is a huge variety of different jobs at Pixar. Animators just animate (and it is true that they don't necesairly need computer animation expierence; some have just done hand drawn animation). Character designers design the characters, modelers build them, riggers set them up animation controls, texture artists paint them, and so on. It's a little confusing because the media often improperly uses the term "animator" to refer to anyone who works in the animation industry.
There are lots of jobs in an animated production company - animators, modellers, riggers, character designers, art designers, etc. (There are too many to name here)
It is my understanding that character designers first design the characters. Then a model is built, often first as a clay maquette, and then scanned and built on the computer.
After that, it is 'rigged' with controls (points kind of like a marionette, except there are thousands of controls), that allow the animation team to move the characters.
Once you have a fully functioning or rigged character, the animators can work with the model. Some animation companies assign different animators or groups of animators per character, and some assign by scene, so you would work with multiple characters on a film.
There is also another element. The characters have to be 'painted,' as in coloured in (when you first build a model it's like this default grey colour).
And finally, after all of those steps are done, the lighting department does it's thing and really brings the scene to life. If you've ever seen animation tests with just test lighting, it doesn't look natural. Proper lighting really brings a scene together.
And that doesn't even cover locations, which also have to be built, manipulated, as well as lit.
* * *
As for the part about not needing computer animation experience, I think it depends on the job. Some designers work on paper, modellers with clay, etc. There are also many other jobs. Plus, employees at Pixar can attend 'Pixar University,' of P.U., in order to brush up on skills.
* * *
If any of this needs correction, anyone can feel free to add their own thoughts. I don't work at an animation company - this is just what I know of the art form.
But the short answer to your question is 'no'. An animator doesn't have time to do all of those steps themselves. That's what you need a good team for. Everyone works together and passes their work on to the next level to be added on to.
I've tried simple computer animation (just experimenting on my own), and it's almost impossible to try to get through all of the steps on your own. And you especially wouldn't have time on a huge production. Plus, each job takes a very different skill set.
Besides the non-art jobs I mentioned earlier, everyone should also check out this link: How Pixar does it.
"you heard it hear first. What exactly did I hear? That you had a hunch Pixar 'might' announce their upcoming slate of films? That's a pretty bold statement to make. Hearing it first. The truth is I heard it first somewhere else, in my own head, where I myself decided it was pretty likely Pixar and Disney would both announce upcoming projects. But guess what? That does make it fact, nor does it make me the insider with knowledge others don't know. It means I made a prediction, which could go either way. And it'll go either way for you as well. If you and I are both right in our predictions, I truly hope you'll be humble and won't go proclaiming to have been the first to state Pixar would be announcing their upcoming slate before anyone else. Because you didn't. You predicted it. And although it may be a grey area, there is a difference. Oh and if you're wrong, I hope you'll eat the humble pie and let everyone on here know you were wrong in your prediction. Or perhaps you'll just go back and edit your announcement (prediction) out of the article.
It's amazing how aggressive anonymouses get these days... And also how aggressive either Mike or Blogger can get, because I sent my comment explaining the whole process of making an animated Pixar film and it was never published ): So I'll just make a quick summary including facts others haven't:
Pixarian pitches an idea, and if CFO John Lasseter likes it and thinks it has potential, pre-production will start for that movie.
Concept art begins to be produced as the story department develops the story for the movie using storyboards drawn by STORYBOARD ARTISTS. Pete Docter in 'The art of Monsters, Inc.' calls this a simultaneous process a 'wonderful cycle of inspiration, traveling via drawings, between the story and art departments, each inspiring the other.'
Once the design is right for each character (after a lot of character designs have been made by CHARACTER DESIGNERS), a model packet is drawn with precise specifications on size and proportions of the character, so the SCULPTOR can bring it from 2D to 3D. Then using a Polhemus Digitizer (that's what they used on Toy Story, I don't know if they still use it) the MODELER will digitize that clay model, so that it can be rigged and textured.
The ANIMATOR is the guy who will bring that model to life, and he doesn't have to worry about shading and stuff. Then in comes the lightning department, which is where [even more] magic happens, because that's where the models stop looking like cheap opaque plastic and start looking more like what they're intended to look like.
Now, as an answer to 'It even says in the qualifications section you don't even have to have computer animation experience wtf?' Well, Anonymous 2.0 explained it way better than me. So there you go. I hope this was highly educational and thank you for asking something that was fun to answer and that briefly put an end to this horribly dull period of news shortage.
it's Finding Nemo 2
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