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A Behind-The-Scenes Look at Pixar’s New Short Film “Piper”

56 points by wallflower 10y ago

berkut 10y ago
"This amounted to 4.5 to 7 million feathers on each bird in Piper" I'm pretty certain they mean "barbs/barbules for feathers", as in curves (cylindrical tubes fit to curves in 3D space which are normally used to render hair/fur/feathers) making up these feather elements. In other words each feather is made up of hundreds of curve primitives. 4.5M actual feathers themselves on each bird would be absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary.
- sp332 10y ago
  I would guess they count each frame individually, since the feathers in each one have to be posed and rendered individually.
  - berkut 10y ago
    They wouldn't count each frame individually, as that's not how it's done - they'll have "guide feathers" which are manually keyframe animated, and the feathers in-between are interpolated from the guide feathers (which is how hair/fur is done). Per frame this just results in different positions/shapes for the curve primitives which make up the feathers.
- blevin 10y ago
  You are right -- that's a count of feather curves (quills & barbs), not feathers. We do not model the barbules -- though there has been interesting work done in trying to calibrate a microfacet BRDF for feathers by tracing against barbule-level details.
claystu 10y ago
Watched "Piper" before "Finding Dory" the other day. We liked it better than the feature film.
- stephenhuey 10y ago
  The rendering was beautiful, and you could tell instantly that it was above and beyond anything seen before. A sweet story without dialogue that tugged at my heart as well!
aphextron 10y ago
I find it incredible how they consistently out-do themselves with every single release. There's some real magic going on in that studio.
ericclemmons 10y ago
I haven't seen the short, but every bird clip reminds me of my favorite: Kiwi! (2006) > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs
rev_bird 10y ago
Saw this a week or two ago -- was absolutely blown away by the quality of the animation. Far and away the most realistic-looking animations I've ever seen; the birds still had a little of that "a computer drew me" look, but the water, the sand... it was breathtaking.
petridishtowel 10y ago
we saw finding dory yesterday with my son (3.5). it was his first ever movie theater experience. after 30 minutes of previews of other cg animated films, when Piper played it was almost like hearing the folks at Pixar say, oh nice guys. and here's a little something we put together. amazing. my wife said it was one of the best short films she's seen; I dally in 3D (Blender with Cycles is absurdly fun), so understood the technical prowess behind such this lovely film. and my son was silently enraptured.
blevin 10y ago
If anyone reading this is attending SIGGRAPH, several of us will be presenting a production talk for Piper on Sunday 2PM. http://s2016.siggraph.org/talks/sessions/life-shorts http://s2016.siggraph.org/talks/sessions/life-shorts

56 points by wallflower 10y ago

"This amounted to 4.5 to 7 million feathers on each bird in Piper" I'm pretty certain they mean "barbs/barbules for feathers", as in curves (cylindrical tubes fit to curves in 3D space which are normally used to render hair/fur/feathers) making up these feather elements. In other words each feather is made up of hundreds of curve primitives. 4.5M actual feathers themselves on each bird would be absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary.

sp332 10y ago
I would guess they count each frame individually, since the feathers in each one have to be posed and rendered individually.
- berkut 10y ago
  They wouldn't count each frame individually, as that's not how it's done - they'll have "guide feathers" which are manually keyframe animated, and the feathers in-between are interpolated from the guide feathers (which is how hair/fur is done). Per frame this just results in different positions/shapes for the curve primitives which make up the feathers.
blevin 10y ago
You are right -- that's a count of feather curves (quills & barbs), not feathers. We do not model the barbules -- though there has been interesting work done in trying to calibrate a microfacet BRDF for feathers by tracing against barbule-level details.

claystu 10y ago

Watched "Piper" before "Finding Dory" the other day. We liked it better than the feature film.

stephenhuey 10y ago
The rendering was beautiful, and you could tell instantly that it was above and beyond anything seen before. A sweet story without dialogue that tugged at my heart as well!

aphextron 10y ago

I find it incredible how they consistently out-do themselves with every single release. There's some real magic going on in that studio.

ericclemmons 10y ago

I haven't seen the short, but every bird clip reminds me of my favorite: Kiwi! (2006) > https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs

rev_bird 10y ago

Saw this a week or two ago -- was absolutely blown away by the quality of the animation. Far and away the most realistic-looking animations I've ever seen; the birds still had a little of that "a computer drew me" look, but the water, the sand... it was breathtaking.

petridishtowel 10y ago

we saw finding dory yesterday with my son (3.5). it was his first ever movie theater experience. after 30 minutes of previews of other cg animated films, when Piper played it was almost like hearing the folks at Pixar say, oh nice guys. and here's a little something we put together. amazing. my wife said it was one of the best short films she's seen; I dally in 3D (Blender with Cycles is absurdly fun), so understood the technical prowess behind such this lovely film. and my son was silently enraptured.

blevin 10y ago

If anyone reading this is attending SIGGRAPH, several of us will be presenting a production talk for Piper on Sunday 2PM. http://s2016.siggraph.org/talks/sessions/life-shorts http://s2016.siggraph.org/talks/sessions/life-shorts