Alumnus Presents at DigiPro2015

Jul 26, 2015

Drexel alumnus Evan Boucher and his colleague Nathaniel Dirksen have been selected to present their DreamWorks Animation work from Penguins of Madagascar at this year’s DigiPro2015 Symposium in LA on Aug. 8.

The Digital Production Symposium (DigiPro 2015) promotes the sharing of ideas, insights and techniques for the production of top quality digital visual effects and animation. DigiPro brings together scientists, engineers, artists and producers in a tight-knit environment, working to close the gap between research results and industry needs.

Speakers are selected based on submitted proposals on topics with impact on digital film production. Topics of interest include the traditional academic areas (such as rendering, simulation, and animation) as well as less-published production topics (such as stereo, pipelines, production management, and the artist-engineer partnership). Submissions may range from theory and algorithms, to engineering decisions, workarounds, and rules of thumb.

On Penguins of Madagascar, we had the unique challenge of rigging several octopus characters to antagonize our heroes. Unlike normal octopuses, they spend most of their time on land, and had to be able to scurry around, operate machinery, and do kung ­fu. However, tentacles are notoriously difficult to animate, so we needed a solution that Animators could easily pose both for walking and gesturing, without taking significantly longer than they would for a normal bipedal character. On top of that, combining the range of motion that a boneless octopus requires with the exaggerated cartoony motions and art­ directed shapes that are a part of the Madagascar style, meant we needed shaping solutions far beyond those found on a typical character. We solved these needs through careful design choices, a custom tentacle setup, special silhouette controls, and a unique approach to combining the face and body deformations.

Full details about the Symposium and program, visit their website at dp2015.digiproconf.org.