230 research outputs found
Animating Unpredictable Effects
Uncanny computer-generated animations of splashing waves, billowing smoke clouds, and charactersâ flowing hair have become a ubiquitous presence on screens of all types since the 1980s. This Open Access book charts the history of these digital moving images and the software tools that make them. Unpredictable Visual Effects uncovers an institutional and industrial history that saw media industries conducting more private R&D as Cold War federal funding began to wane in the late 1980s. In this context studios and media software companies took concepts used for studying and managing unpredictable systems like markets, weather, and fluids and turned them into tools for animation. Unpredictable Visual Effects theorizes how these animations are part of a paradigm of control evident across society, while at the same time exploring what they can teach us about the relationship between making and knowing
VFX â A New Frontier: The Impact of Innovative Technology on Visual Effects
Although Visual Effects (VFX) are an increasingly important element of the media content demanded by audiences, of media production (filmmaking and storytelling) and of the media industries, VFX remains a relatively under-research area within academic media or film studies. Innovations in technology are instrumental to the continuous developments in VFX technology, enabling the evolution of storytelling techniques and expanding the boundaries of VFX content and the VFX industries. In particular, a new wave of cutting-edge technologies have contributed to a period of extensive technical and organisational changes in the VFX industry. The implementation of these technologies is occurring during a period of growth in demand for VFX content, ever hight standards of quality (in particular the realism of VFX effects) and resulting demand for VFX workers. Supplying this demand for both greater quantity and quality of VFX content has increased the pressure for VFX production to be as efficient as possible. This has brought pressure on production budgets (to produce more and better content from the same or even diminishing resources) and production timeframes (âturnaround timesâ). One result of all these changes is that VFX workers now confront a multitude of new challenges.
This study investigates the new technology which is driving or enabling these changes and in particular focuses on the impact of implementing these technologies on VFX production (the VFX workflow). The study collects evidence to show how these new technologies, combined with the broader changes in the industry, are impacting VFX production and labour.
The thesis approaches this research task by use economic and sociological theories of technology, innovation, and production/labour to provide a conceptual framework to use in understanding how these changes are impacting the products produced by the industry and the work experience of VFX professionals.
The next step is to fill in the gaps in knowledge resulting from the relatively under-researched nature of VFX production withing academic media and film studies. The thesis provides a detailed account of the emergence and growth of âthe VFX industryâ, including historical and current product and process innovations. Rather than defining the object of study in relation to content genres or types of business, the study defines the industry in terms of workers using a common set of tools. This section of the thesis explores the economic and cultural causes of changes in the industry and maps out the qualitative changes in the creativity, job satisfaction and job security/precarity of VFX labour.
The collection of primary data through interviews with industry professionals provides the unique contribution of this study, setting out how VFX work is changing in different content genres, types of business and production roles, at different hierarchical levels.
This study contributes to the field by addressing the need for academic and empirical research in this neglected area of study. The thesis contributes original knowledge on the impact of current technological innovations by providing research based on primary data collected from interviews with the VFX workers impacted by the implementation of the technologies. Potential policy and practical applications of this research include assisting industry professionals in deconstructing the marketing âhypeâ around these cutting-edge technologies and outlining uncertainties and implications of these technologies, helping them in the complex decision making of evaluating and implementing current innovative technology
Towards a research agenda for adopting Agile Project Management in Creative Industries
Agile Project Management (APM) has gained strong acceptance in software development but its adoption in other industries has not been as swift. We look at the visual effects (VFX) component of the film industry to explore this issue. Using an abductive research approach combined with a survey of existing practices, we aim to investigate an industry whose projects are large, expensive and time critical. Our study hopes to show that VFX companies exhibit many characteristics conducive to APM adoption but it is only within their internal software development teams that they explicitly state their use of APM. We explore why these companies, who exhibit predisposed adoption characteristics use something other than Agile for their non-software related projects. In exploring this surprising position, we hope to gain insights into how other industries may adopt APM and to set a research agenda for APM in non-software development creative companies
High-accuracy mass, spin, and recoil predictions of generic black-hole merger remnants
We present accurate fits for the remnant properties of generically precessing
binary black holes, trained on large banks of numerical-relativity simulations.
We use Gaussian process regression to interpolate the remnant mass, spin, and
recoil velocity in the 7-dimensional parameter space of precessing black-hole
binaries with mass ratios , and spin magnitudes .
For precessing systems, our errors in estimating the remnant mass, spin
magnitude, and kick magnitude are lower than those of existing fitting formulae
by at least an order of magnitude (improvement is also reported in the
extrapolated region at high mass ratios and spins). In addition, we also model
the remnant spin and kick directions. Being trained directly on precessing
simulations, our fits are free from ambiguities regarding the initial frequency
at which precessing quantities are defined. We also construct a model for
remnant properties of aligned-spin systems with mass ratios , and spin
magnitudes . As a byproduct, we also provide error
estimates for all fitted quantities, which can be consistently incorporated
into current and future gravitational-wave parameter-estimation analyses. Our
model(s) are made publicly available through a fast and easy-to-use Python
module called surfinBH.Comment: 6+5 pages. Matches PRL version. Python implementation available at
https://pypi.org/project/surfinBH
Mapping Beyond the Uncanny Valley: A Delphi Study on Aiding Adoption of Realistic Digital Faces
Developers and HCI researchers have long strived to create digital agents that are more realistic. Voice-only versions are now common, but there has been a lack of visually realistic agents. A key barrier is the âUncanny Valleyâ, referring to aversion being triggered if agents are not quite realistic. To gain understanding of the challenges of the Uncanny Valley in creating realistic agents, we conducted a Delphi study. For the Delphi panel, we recruited 13 leading international experts in the area of digital humans. They participated in three rounds of qualitative interviews. We aimed to transfer their knowledge from the entertainment industry to HCI researchers. Our findings include the unexpected conclusion that the panel considered the challenges of final rendering was not a key problem. Instead, modeling and rigging were highlighted, and a new dimension of interactivity was revealed as important. Our results provide a set of research directions for those engaged in HCI-oriented information systems using realistic digital humans
Mapping Beyond the Uncanny Valley: A Delphi Study on Aiding Adoption of Realistic Digital Faces
Developers and HCI researchers have long strived to create digital agents that are more realistic. Voice-only versions are now common, but there has been a lack of visually realistic agents. A key barrier is the âUncanny Valleyâ, referring to aversion being triggered if agents are not quite realistic.
To gain understanding of the challenges of the Uncanny Valley in creating realistic agents, we conducted a Delphi study. For the Delphi panel, we recruited 13 leading international experts in the area of digital humans. They participated in three rounds of qualitative interviews. We aimed to transfer their knowledge from the entertainment industry to HCI researchers. Our findings include the unexpected conclusion that the panel considered the challenges of final rendering was not a key problem. Instead, modeling and rigging were highlighted, and a new dimension of interactivity was revealed as important.
Our results provide a set of research directions for those engaged in HCI-oriented information systems using realistic digital humans
The Role of Python in Visual Effects Pipeline : Case: Talvi Tools
The purpose of this thesis was to study the concept of visual effects pipelines and analyze how programming language Python can fit into the post-production phase of film making. In the extremely competitive environment of visual effects industry, companies are forced to constantly look out for newer technologies and research more optimal production methodologies. In search of feasible solutions studios often come across Python.
The theoretical part of the study outlines a brief history of Python and illustrates the power of this programming language with two exemplified use case applications. In addition to that, various possible Python implementations in the production of computer generated imagery are extensively reviewed. To give a more complete picture of how this programming language aids post-production, the adoption of Python by Industrial Light & Magic is examined. As it became clear that Python would prevail in the production of computer graphics, software vendors started embedding Python support in their products. This claim is further supported by the analysis of Python integration within major contect-creation applications.
The outcome of this study is the add-on for Blender developed in Python. The purpose of the add-on is to facilitate and accelerate the export of character and camera animation data, which is specifically useful for projects that require a substantial amount of computer animation to be moved from Blender to another software for later use
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