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HAPPY FEAT!

From STORAGE Magazine Vol 7, Issue 4 - June 2007

The Oscar-winning animated film 'Happy Feet' has been enchanting audiences everywhere with its heart-warming storyline and stunning visuals - a success story in which NetApp itself played a major part

Happy Feet, the first digitally animated feature film produced in Australia, was the largest and most challenging endeavour ever undertaken by Animal Logic, one of the world's most highly respected digital production companies. And the film’s brilliance was recognised at the 2007 Oscar awards, where it was voted 'Best Animated Feature Film'.

From the film's inception, Animal Logic was involved in every step of the artistic process to bring it to life, working closely alongside director George Miller to create an engaging story and unforgettable characters, with magical input from the voices behind the camera, including Nicole Kidman, Robin Williams, Elijah Woods and Brittany Murphy.

"When Miller first approached Animal Logic with his story of a penguin that tap dances to the beat of his own drum, we were thrilled for the opportunity to create this visually stunning world and the unforgettable characters that inhabit it," says the company.

The film's unique look - from fluffy baby penguin fur, to snow kicks, to underwater chases, to ever-changing skies - was achieved through a remarkable mixture of techniques and proprietary software created in-house at Animal Logic.

And that blend of innovative skills has won it universal praise, as exemplified by Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: "Beauty announces itself quietly in 'Happy Feet', whether in the discreetly shifting shades of white that seem to turn the snow into a living, breathing organism, or in the articulated lines of penguin chicks that make each ball of downy fluff a very specific ball of downy fluff."

The Animal Logic team created the look for every key character and scene, bringing them all into being, from concept art and design to modelling, rigging, mo-cap, 2D and 3D animation, surfacing, lensing, crowds, visual effects and lighting. The two primary tools created by Animal Logic for 'Happy Feet' were:

• 'Flense': A lensing tool that allowed them to block characters at the same time as lensing the shots and reviewing the cut. This enabled director George Miller to make multiple decisions at the same time interactively

• 'Horde': A crowd system that takes multiple performances with variation, and then randomises them further through time and space warping. Very naturalistic crowd scenes were made possible through this tool.

From capturing the spectacular scenery of Antarctica to achieving the 'art-directed reality' in which normally identical penguins are given individual looks and personalities, the film presented many exciting artistic and technological challenges. And its Antarctic setting called for some daunting research. "While gorgeous, Antarctica is one of the most inhospitable places in the world," notes production designer Mark Sexton. "It's practically all ice and rock. So we knew we were going to have very fresh, clean, barren environments.

"To stay true to the beauty of the place," adds Sexton, "we needed the best reference material." And that saw Animal Logic's technical director Brett Feeney make two treks to the frozen continent to ensure that the outstanding visuals of this foreign world were fully realised.

"During the past four years, we have pushed the envelope of innovation and our own creativity," says Animal Logic, "to help create a technically and visually ground-breaking film."

The film also relied on NetApp storage and data management solutions to store, manage, protect and access data while it was being made. Animal Logic used NetApp fabric-attached storage (FAS) systems, holding more than 300TB of data in a mix of primary and secondary storage for archiving. The NetApp solution provided the production house with high-performance, reliable and cost-effective storage to accelerate the delivery of its digital effects.

The upshot is a fully animated delight, with remarkable visuals and effects that place great reliance on simplified storage architecture, with consistently high performance and scalability.

Backed by the high performance and robust nature of NetApp storage systems, Animal Logic has continued to push the boundaries of computer-generated animation in movies such as The Matrix Reloaded, Lord of the Rings and Moulin Rouge. In fact, the company produces award-winning design, animation and visual effects solutions not just for the film industry, but for television and advertising as well.

Over time, animation has evolved from an entertainment alternative produced primarily for children to an industry targeting a much broader audience. As the animation industry grows, digital production houses look to technological improvements to help meet the increasing demands.

For production houses like Animal Logic, success would be far more difficult without a highly responsive and consistently available storage network, and software applications that can adapt to greater demands. Industry specialists consider animation to be among the most challenging applications for storage system in terms of performance, with thousands of concurrent processors accessing and storing data at any point in time.

The success of Animal Logic and its resulting dramatic growth has led to the creation of hundreds of terabytes of data that needed to be stored, managed and easily accessible. "Audiences expect us to deliver breakthrough visual effects and animation and, as such, our films are incredibly complex to create," says Xavier Desdoights, director of technical operations, Animal Logic. "In the animation business, with its short delivery lead times, it's absolutely vital that data is readily accessible. We continue to use NetApp because it can handle the highly intensive technical applications required to create animation such as Happy Feet.

"NetApp offers a reliable and simple management interface, and understands the post-production sector and its tight deadlines. Providing round-the-clock support, reliability and scalability are important factors for us and NetApp delivers consistently."

As Patrick Rogers, vice president of solutions marketing, NetApp, points out: "Animal Logic's creative team can't have their time and creative energy hampered by dealing with performance, management or scalability issues. NetApp is trusted in the animation and rich media industry, because of the simplicity, performance and reliability our storage solutions provide." ST