Things I learned to become a senior software engineer
Six fundamentals of software engineering
Posts by 沈阳（Sophie）
- Don’t animate what the character is doing; animate what the character is thinking.
- Classical drawing: muscle, bone, etc. (physically-based animation!)
- Drawing: to the point that I feel I’m doing it.
- Animation is the ultimate art form. It has acting, it has drawing, it has filmmaking, design and music, dance and everything together. It’s an incredibly humbling art form.
- Draw the moment and experience.
So the explainer video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZJLtujW6FY, and paper https://disney-animation.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/122/asset/pman.pdf
The idea is to have the 3D model carry its 3D Silhouette Ribbons. So the artist’s 2D drawing can be mapped to the 3D Silhouette Ribbons. When the model moves, the 3D Silhouette Ribbons follows and carries the corresponding 2D drawing.
The process seems simplified by 2D. First data of 3D Silhouette Ribbons and motion field in 2D screen space are precomputed. Then artist draws lines, computer maps it to 3D Silhouette Ribbons. Motion is directed by the 2D motion field in screen space. The 3D Silhouette Ribbons mapped to screen is moved by the 2D motion field. During a move, the 2D drawing of its 3D Silhouette Ribbon is moved by <> (don’t understand :_( ). The artist is responsible to draw new lines for hidden 3D Silhouette Ribbons appears into the screen.
Next:
Figure out this thing:
日子时好时坏
像麻省的天气。
雨
掉下来
不断。
我
像在深海里
没有噪音
没有方向
Example case:
- gem install (.circleci/config.yml)
Example errors:
- ruby writing permission exhibited
- invalid ruby version
Solution:
Customize ruby version in .circleci/config.yml:
Reference:
CircleCI 2.0 > Testing iOS Applications on macOS > Using Custom Ruby Versions. https://circleci.com/docs/2.0/testing-ios/#using-custom-ruby-versions
Thinking about GI again. Found a paper online for understanding the core of global illumination, light scattering:
Lars Øgendal. Light Scattering Demystified Theory and Practice. https://www.nbi.dk/~ogendal/personal/lho/lightscattering_theory_and_practice.pdf
- quantitative light scattering computation: use complex number; simply and elegantly; page 28, 2.6 Scattering from one small, composite object
2019 is a much unexpected year. I felt lost at a point with too many turn arounds that I am actually incapable to handle.
Right now is the Saturday right after Thanksgiving. I’m sitting in a cafe in south Boston, in front of fire, with summer fruit herb tea and salad, my little notebooks and shiny new 16” MacBook Pro. Nice relaxing cool Christmas music. Still feel drained from the burnout before holiday. But I can think normally, now.
To not be shy, I feel like thank myself.. (I do thanked everybody else in Thanksgiving). 2019 is the year I “confront” my passion for painterly animation. I took serious actions to be a good researcher. Animation is such an unlimited realm that what’s out there in the market is just a touch of a tiny point. The old saying.. the more I know, the more stupid I feel I am. I know so little. My perspective of animation creation is changing . As I study more animations, I realized my initial vision becomes a question: I’m not sure if it’s possible to democratize animation creation with formulas. Or, more accurately, I’m not sure if I am willing to democratize animation creation. Largely because, the creation process by itself is simply beautiful. It’s always changing. Inspirations come from nowhere. Would a formula catch such dynamics that has a lot unknowns? Would any formula give the experience and feeling of crafting an animation? Maybe I will know when we finish the short film.
The short film keeps changing so much that I am excited and tired to a point that I don’t want to look at it. Yet, there’re still a lot work. I think at this point I can’t afford any waste of time and energy for anything but finishing this film. I don’t know when would it be finished. I think actually it’s possible to estimate the amount of work with detailed script, character design, character relationships, and art directions. Even that we’re working with another studio, we still must know the transformation between script and production. Still haven’t done open sourcing sky rendering.. O_O
I’ve been concerned about my visa status; whether to move back China. I miss China.. Everything, so much. But right now, the film is No. 1. So many distractions so many pulling away that I also feel tired to focus.
I hope 2020 would be more stable. Things to keep up:
- Continue focused study of animation; back to this blog for notes
- Stop reading politics news..
- Embrace saying no..
Based on IAN FAILES’s article of ‘Klaus’ technique [1], I feel the tool SPA studio uses for “Klaus” gives a lot controls to artist to surpass 2D hand-drawn limitations. The control is created from artists’ lens. Because of that, it cultivates the artistic creation process.
Lighting makes the 2D drawing 3D like. This is because applying lighting is based on physically-based lighting – how Pixar does lighting for their films. The artist would specify areas for different types of light in the 2D drawing, the tool then automatically apply 3D lighting to the specified area.
Following are some thoughts of the article:
The quest to do something different in 2D
? Lack of technical details of limitation of 2D hand drawn animation.
It looks like the limitation is intuitive artistic control.
A production solution
Seems the solution is a tracking system to hand-drawn lines. I guess the tracking system helps convert the snapshot of the film – hand-drawn lines – to the final film. The tracking system makes artistic details consistent for finalizing artistic details for a static frame and moving artistic details between frames.
The process before lighting
- Artist: storyboard with Storyboard Pro from Toon Boom
- Artist: remove lines based on artistic sense
The lighting breakthrough
Lighting (automatic, or theoretically could be to artist): break down the lighting of a scene in a convincing way, the same way that concept artists do every day.
Texturing: level of grain
Comp: texturing to corresponding lighting
References
[1] IAN FAILES. HERE’S WHAT MADE THE 2D ANIMATION IN ‘KLAUS’ LOOK ‘3D’. Before & Afters. https://beforesandafters.com/2019/11/14/heres-what-made-the-2d-animation-in-klaus-look-3d/
Happy Thanksgiving.
I never know how this fucking world works and how the fuck people communicate.
This drives me to nuts.
时间 静静地流淌
那些若隐若现地轮廓
或已消逝
或未呈现
宁静
像一片月光海
清澈明亮
