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Customer Highlight: Kevin Kipper, Pixel Magic
(April 16, 2003)
Pixel Magic
is a leading Los Angeles-based facility specializing in the creation of
visual effects for feature films and television. For the past two years, the
facility has deployed particleIllusion, primarily in the 3D department.
wondertouch caught up with Kevin Kipper, visual effects artist at Pixel Magic.
Kipper, who has worked at the studio for about the same length of time as
particleIllusion has been installed, has contributed effects work on a
staggering 14 feature films. Some of the Pixel Magic feature film projects
that relied on particleIllusion include: "Behind Enemy Lines," "Black
Knight," "Final Destination II," "Hart's War," "How to Lose a Guy in 10
Days," "Rollerball," "Scary Movie 2," and "The Rules of Attraction."
Q: Tell us about your background and how you got your start in the business.
I've been interested in film making since I first saw "Star Wars" in the
1970's. After spending many years taking classes in art, film and
photography I became interested in using computer animation as a means of
storytelling. My first real break into the film and television industry was
in 1995 when I started working as a computer animator on a Saturday morning
kid's show called "Hypernauts." Over the next four years I worked mainly on
television series including "Babylon 5," "Star Trek Voyager," "Mystic Knights
of Tir Na Nog," "Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles," "Xyber 9" and
"Nascar Racers." During that time I also worked as a supervising animator on
several feature films including "The Jackal," and "Batman vs. Mr. Freeze:
SubZero."
Q: Can you comment on the importance of a particle effects application in the
filmmaking process, in general, and, specifically what particleIllusion
features are important to the feature film visual effects work that Pixel
Magic is doing?
Particle effects are used to create everything from smoke, water and dust as
well as serve as the basis for certain kinds of motion, for example the
"flocking and swarming" patterns you might see in a flock of birds or school
of fish. Nearly all of particleIllusion's features are important in film work
because they provide control from the particle level to the emitter level. On
top of this control, you can apply forces and deflectors to manipulate the
particles even further.
Q: What initially impacted Pixel Magic's decision to purchase particleIllusion?
Our decision to bring in particleIllusion was due to a combination of its
reasonable price and its overall capabilities. Using particleIllusion is fast
and easy-to-use and the render quality is great, which simplifies production
workflow.
Q: Can you tell us about the production pipeline at Pixel Magic and how
particleIllusion fits in?
particleIllusion is being used primarily in the 3D department to create
visual effects that require smoke and dust and debris. The complexity of a
shot usually determines which software approach we will take to create the
effect. Often a background plate has been shot in a locked-off position, that
is, with no camera move. These kinds of situations are ideal for using
particleIllusion.
Our primary 3d software is Lightwave and through this we can export motions
and import them into particleIllusion. In this manner any emitter in
particleIllusion can be made to have the same movement on screen as in the 3d
package which means the effects line up precisely with their corresponding
source. We can do the same thing with After Effects which we also use to
composite the particleIllusion elements when rendered.
Q: Can you describe the visual effects challenges in one of the film's where
particleIllusion was used?
In "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" we needed to make two of the film's
characters dissolve away into particles. The challenge was that the actors
were in motion and the visual effects supervisor wanted the particles to
'stick'to the actors until a certain time and then disperse. By using the new
'mask emitter with images' feature in particleIllusion, I was able to
generate particles from the shapes of the actors as they moved and have them
stick to their 'birth place' origins until it was time to disperse them.
Another challenge for that shot was to make a handwritten logo appear on
screen. Using the logotype as a template I was able to animate each emitter
in the shape of each letter and by again controlling the velocity of the
particles was able to constrain the effect within the logo shape.
Q: We understand that particleIllusion is also being used at Pixel Magic for
film pre-visualization. Could you tell us about that?
Yes, that's true. There are two important things when previsualizing -- the
first is to do things quickly and the second is to be able to change the shot
based on the directors input or to be able to offer an alternative view of
the shot. Unfortunately we typically don't have the luxury of time to render
out effects such as fire, smoke or water even though the addition might make
the previs look better. That's where particleIllusion is a great help. There
are plenty of preset emitters for these types of effects and it's easy to
modify the presets to fit your shot. particleIllusion adds that extra quality
with little or no overhead to the previsualized shot.
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