The good news is that there are now software programs that allow mere mortals- rather than an entire art department- to create 3D animatics. These new desktop previsualization tools include Curious Labs Poser 5, SketchUp 4 Film and Video from @Last Software, StoryViz from RealViz software, and Antics from Antics Technologies. While Poser 5 has been continuously upgraded over the years, the latter three are recent offerings that hold new options for 3D previsualizations. The key to effectively using any of these programs is to know what you need- as well as how much time and effort you are willing to spend to get there.

Curious Labs Poser 5 has the most seniority of pre-vis applications, having survived five revisions at three different companies. Poser 5 focuses primarily on 3D character animation, where you "pose" everything from hand gestures to facial grimaces on 3D models of people, animals and custom humanoid models.

After it’s fully rendered, your Poser 5 model can look remarkably realistic, especially if composited into a photographic background using Photoshop. Let me corroborate this by relating a story about a job I did for a studio executive who became quite irked when I showed him storyboards that used a Poser character in place of an actor. "Who gave you permission to hire an actor- what union is he part of?!?" he asked loudly. He turned a lovely shade of red when it was explained that the actor- and his union- were virtual.

Using Poser is a breeze compared to other 3D applications. The program interface has three main components: a display window that shows your model, a Parameter dial palette for fine-tuning the model parts, and a hideaway Library palette that provides preset models, poses, lights- even hair. Once you select your model (man, woman, child and so on) from the Library palette, you can either choose one from dozens available in the Poses section of the Library palette or manually position your model. To change any body part, just click on that body part and then either move it with the mouse or dial in the amount of bend with a parameter dial.

Curious Labs Poser 5

3D character animation, control of facial expressions, hand movements, facial texture mapping, realistic hair animation

Speed Bumps:

Set scenery limited, complicated sets and characters require third party models, no network rendering, CPU intensive

You can place more than one model into a scene, although each model you add puts more of a burden on your CPU. Another CPU hit comes from adding realistic hair to your model or using the Head section to map a side and front head shot onto the face of your model.

So why not just use Poser for all your pre-vis needs? The main reason is set design and staging; while you have a great deal of control over your Poser model, you don’t have much, if any, control over the set or lighting. You can create rudimentary backdrops that have background photos mapped to them, but creating an actual room is difficult. To supplement this limitation, Poser is often used in conjunction with E-on Software’s Vue d’Esprit 3D landscape software. Using the E-on Mover translation program, you can place Poser models into a 3D scene in Vue d’ Esprit. And while Poser provides tools for animating your characters, don’t expect a fast turnaround- the advanced rendering in Poser can take a long time to spit out a single finished frame.

Sketchup for Film and Video

Architectural precision, can create starting point for set construction and logistics, even planning focal lengths

Speed Bumps:

Characters don’t move and are limited in detail

While Poser 5 only covers one part of the pre-vis process, it’s a good place to start if you are a novice to 3D animation. Also, by the time you read this, Curious Labs plans to announce Poser 6, with even more capabilities.

Creating Sets with SketchUp 4 Film and Video

@Last Software’s SketchUp 4 Film and Video literally takes a different perspective than Poser, with a focus on set design and staging. SketchUp originally was designed as a architectural CAD (Computer Aided Design) program for the masses, where you could quickly use a simplified toolset to design buildings, rather than learning a dense and specialized program like AutoDesk’s AutoCAD. Much to @Last’s surprise, they found that many of their new customers came from film and video production, where art directors and others would use SketchUp to design sets. Playing to this new market, @Last created SketchUp 4 Film and Video, which adds models specific to production, such as cranes, dollies, huge HMI lights and so on.

Normally, using a CAD program would be the software equivalent of piloting a plane- possible, but not without weeks of training. SketchUp is the antithesis of CAD programs and uses a connect-the-dots approach to building 3D models. You start by dragging and dropping a flat square onto the main screen. Next, you use the camera controls to move from the default top view to a side view. Building the walls is simply a matter of drawing a vertical line up from each corner and then drawing a horizontal connecting the vertical lines. This connects the lines into a solid surface, and SketchUp automatically puts a solid face on your new wall. By adding and subtracting surfaces, you can quickly build an entire set worth of exteriors. Then you can add characters and models of film gear by simply dragging and dropping them into the scene.

Antics Technologies Antics

(intro price, $1250 after 90 days)

Cool Features:

Easy-to-use, powerful 3D game visualization technology; behavior based models; characters can lip sync to audio files

Speed Bumps:

Can’t output print storyboards or individual still files, requires powerful CPU and OpenGL card

While you can move around and pick different camera angles, SketchUp’s 3D characters are very basic- often just a set pose without any real details. Also, while you can animate a walkthrough from your set, you can’t animate the 3D elements in your set. Still, SketchUp is a remarkable tool for set logistics, where you can precisely determine everything from the amount of track you’ll need for a dolly shot to whether the crane will fit into a particular location.

First shown at SIGGRAPH 2004, Antics from Antics Technology offers a complete break from traditional 3D animation programs that makes it ideal for previsualization. Of all the 3D programs we looked at, Antics was both the easiest to use and the most powerful. Instead of using keyframes, coordinates, and other 3D-interface stumbling blocks, Antics uses 3D game technology, where sophisticated models use behavior scripts that you can access with a point-and-click interface. Instead of doing extensive modeling or animation, you simply drag and drop models into a scene and then animate the characters with a series of mouse clicks.

To create 3D scenes with Antics, you use a simple interface consisting of a main window, two content list windows and a toolbar with a variety of icons. To build a basic room, first select the Create Room icon from the toolbar and then place points for each corner of the room by clicking on a point on a grid. Once you’ve set a floor design, you add walls by simply selecting the Wall icon and then double-clicking on each line of the room. Antics will automatically change the line to a plane and then add a wall. Next drag and drop windows or doors onto your walls, and then add any of 300 included 3D models into your scene.

Ah, now the fun begins- because once you’ve got your set built you can have the characters interact inside it. In 3D animation, you normally need to set a separate keyframe for each character’s action- including the position and angle of every joint in its body- which can be very time intensive. Instead of this approach, Antics uses a basic scripting technology to make character animation fast and easy. For example, to make a character cross a dining room and sit in a chair, you simply select the character and then click on the chair. The character immediately walks around the table, moves to the chair and then sits down. Each object in the room- including the character- has a set of behaviors built into it. So a character will automatically sit in a chair model, lie down on a bed model, or open a door. You can also create new behaviors by using Antics scripting language.

So just how critical is previsualization? For Chuck Russell, it’s the difference that will get your production green lighted. Director of such films as Eraser, The Mask and The Scorpion King, Russell once had the tide turned on getting a film funded by showing an image he had created of one of the main characters. "I was able to close the deal on Dreamscape by showing a watercolor that I had created for the snake-man character," notes Russell. Since then Russell has used concept art, storyboards and extensive previsualization sequences to communicate critical visual concepts and streamline his production flow. "For example, during Eraser, we had a really difficult sequence where Arnold [ Schwarzenegger ] was escaping an airplane in mid air," recalls Russell. "We had to use pre-vis to make sure that we covered all the angles, while not literally leaving our star dangling from wires too long."

These days Russell creates concept art using Curious Labs Poser 5 to create 3D characters and Corel Bryce 3D software to create sets and landscapes. "I also use Photoshop to composite images and create filmic effects, such as adding film grain to the image," notes Russell. For his latest film, The Way of the Rat starring Jet Li, Russell plans on integrating some of the new 3D pre-vis software tools into his production workflow.

Once you’ve created a scene and populated it with actors, you can record all the actors’ movements and cuts to different camera angles using snapshots that log the different script commands for each model, character and camera in your scene. Once you are happy with the order of events, you use the Director module to adjust the timing of each event. The icing on the cake is that you can even add dialog to the scene by dragging and dropping.wav files of dialog onto a character, which will lip-sync the dialog while moving around in the scene.

After spending time with the beta of Antics, I was very excited by the previsualization potential in the program. However, there are several areas that the program will need to address when it finally ships. First, Antics Technology has a sizable task on its hands to optimize the program so that it runs quickly and smoothly on the myriad of PC systems out there. While many operations worked well, it was clear that the software was still in beta and needed some work. Also, while the company has an extensive feature set for version 1.0, critical features such as the ability to output still images for storyboards and the ability to output QuickTime and Windows Media movies won’t arrive until version 1.1 or 1.2.

In budgets big and small, producers and directors are finding that visualizing scenes, characters and setups is the only way to deal with the double-edged sword of shrinking budgets and rising production costs. The programs that we’ve mentioned here are the first of a wave of new products designed to make it easier to visually collaborate with production staff, and ultimately improve the quality of your shows. Now you just have to come up with a great script- but that’s another story.

RealViz StoryViz

Powerful 3D rendering capabilities, can import complex 3D models

Speed Bumps:

Non-intuitive interface, steep learning curve, requires 3D animation experience

Another pre-vis package that wasn’t finished at press time is StoryViz from RealViz software. Using the expertise gained from the company’s ImageModeler software, RealViz created the $3600 StoryViz to be a hybrid of 3D pre-vis software and an advanced 3D rendering/animation package. The goal was to create 3D animated sequences that could be professionally lit and rendered, while at the same time providing character animation capabilities.

The pre-shipping version of StoryViz that we worked with required more time to install and ramp up on than the other programs had. On the plus side, StoryViz has the capability of importing a variety of 3D models (including Maya, 3ds Max, or RealViz ImageModeler) and creating basic 3D models inside the program, as well as rendering highly detailed imagery. The few 3D characters that are included can be posed at the major joints such as shoulders, wrists and so on. StoryViz also takes advantage of OpenGL to reasonably approximate lighting changes in real time.

The catch is that StoryViz breaks with tradition and basic industry interface conventions with a 3D workflow that felt to me like it was designed by engineers for other engineers. Installing the StoryViz software was time-consuming, with days of waiting just to get a license and then having to invent a critical holding file when the license finally came in.

Even after RealViz addresses these issues, it is clear that StoryViz is not aimed at the novice or even intermediate level user. For those companies with professional 3D artists on staff that have experience with the RealViz interface, StoryViz could be a valuable tool- especially if it is important to work with a custom model created in Maya or one of the other high end 3D packages.

Contributing writer Erik Holsinger is executive producer and president of Media Alchemy, Inc., a Seattle -based video production and post-production company.

Antics | Antics Technology, Inc.

Poser 5 | Curious Labs Software

Mover and Vue D’Esprit

E-on Software, Inc.

StoryViz | RealViz software

SketchUp 4 Film and Video

@Last Software

In our tests we used both a Macintosh and Windows XP system. On the Mac side, we had a dual 1.25 GHz PowerMac G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM, while our Windows XP system was an HP xw8100 workstation that sports dual 3 GHz Xeon CPUs with 1 GB of RAM. Both systems have fast drives and high-end graphics cards with at least 128 MB of RAM.