ZD Net features a very cool webcast about the new DreamWorks work of art : Madagascar. I’ve always been a very big fan of the motion and animation this company has produced, but this movie really exceeds all reasonable boundaries of technology. DreamWorks uses the latest HP technology with AMD’s Opterons to render all the information, but they had to ‘invent’ new software that was able to render this production, because there hasn’t been any animated movie yet that featured so many individual characters, sounds and moving scenery. This webcast gives you some insights in the ‘behind the scenes’ of this massive 3D cartoon.
At the DreamWorks press junket for Madagascar in San Francisco, ZD Net spoke to the visual effect supervisor of Madagascar, Philippe Gluckman, and learned about the complexities of animation within the jungle setting–from 4 million leaves on 14,000 plants to crowds of dancing lemurs. The webcast takes about 7 minutes.
You can imagine it takes quite a machine to render 4 million pieces of scenery that all deform simultaneously in one single frame.
Also important to pay attention to is the unique mix of jungle sounds, and the nifty display of the characters in their natural junglish context.
Related posts : ZD Net : DreamWorks animation renders digital jungle.
