Opening Doors.

Software testing spawns an animated production

The product development team's goal when creating the animated segment "Passage" was to stress-test the new features in Maya 4.0. The results, though, netted far more: a visually detailed, thought-provoking production. Using subdivision surfaces and procedural textures, the artists achieved a high level of detail for the imagery, which was essential for rendering the animation at high-definition television (HDTV) resolution.

"Passage" is the most recent animated project created at Alias|Wavefront to uncover bugs and test features in a new or revamped software release. Since Maya was introduced nearly three years ago, most of the in-house animations have been humorous 30-second mock commercials. The most notable exception was Chris Landreth's "Bingo," a dark, enigmatic piece featuring a nightmarish clown, created with the original Maya software. "Passage" takes a similarly ambitious approach with a compelling story and complex visual content.

Written by Edgar Pablos, "Passage" is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's parable "Before the Law," which depicts a me taphoric journey through life in which a man accepts the oppression of authority and fails to ultimately fulfill his personal goals and desires. To illustrate this concept, co-directors Matt Dougan and Andres Vitale created a boy character, who grows into an old man while trying to persuade a giant to allow him access to a passageway hidden behind a closed door. After spending his lifetime trying to gain passage, the old man finally asks the giant why he cannot enter, to which the giant replies that he has never tried hard enough.

"We wanted to keep the animation ambiguous, like the original story, so that everyone could draw their own conclusions from the presentation," explains Dougan. "We want it to mean different things to different people."

Details, Details

"Passage" was rendered in HDTV resolution at 1280 by 720 pixels, which required the artists to fill each flame with four times the amount of detailed data than is normally needed for a television production. "HDTV resolution is closer to film resolution, so we couldn't hide anything or it would show," says Dougan.