Week #17

Advanced, Experimental VFX Animation and Techniques.
Blog Week#17 (May 25).
Neuronal Modelling Cont'd (NURBS Approach),
and Foundry CG Supervisorial Panel Discussion

Polygon vs NURBS Modelling

To complement the conventional polygon technique frequently implemented in modelling various inorganic structures, as introduced in Blog WK#16, I am further studying the NURBS modelling technique which is commonly used for organic structures (NURBS = non-uniform rational b-spline; Murdock 2017, Tickoo 2017). As portrayed on the immediate left, this frequently begins with importing an image plane that becomes directly modified by means of interface with a NURBS primitive (e.g. a sphere), which is then reformatted to provide an initial approximation of the structure of relevance (e.g. a neuronal cell body, note IMG on the lower left beneath this paragraph, -specifically the faded orange sphere). The video on the lower R (beneath this paragraph) shows the initial NURBS modelling of one dendrite.

Initial NURBS Skeleton

The process of generating several neurite projections from the cell body has been completed, and as below, is reasonably successful (Benavides-Piccione et al, 2020). Following the modelling of the primary and secondary neurites, the neuronal cell body was reshaped (by means of the sculpting tool) to portray a moderately pyramidal shape. This first effort with NURBS modelling did have a few snags, e.g. the curves as placed w the Curve Tool, stopped visualizing, thus much of this modelling was completed by means of poygon modelling. I would actually prefer to have 3 neurons to composite w my image of the hippocampus, so I may attempt a 3rd neuron, as determined by time. The following neuron and the one created fully by means of polygon modelling, are both reasonable however, and wil both be forwarded onto the dendritic spine processing stage.

Virtual Production Assignment

This week included a talk from Christos about virtual production (and other topics). The lecture included a HW assignment of reading about and summarizing the topic of Virtual Production. This HW assignment will be added to the research blog as a separate entry between weeks #17 and 18.

Foundry CG Supervisor Webinar

This wk also found Christos emailing about the opportunity to watch a Foundry sponsored Webinar about the vocational niche of a CG supervisor. The talk was interesting.

In brief, across a series of 4 panelists (and one coordinator), each summarized how they had come into the CG supervisor role from different backgrounds, the most common path for this is probably from a lighting/compositing background, whereas the least common path was from the domain of animation. Each artist described how a background integrating a range of prior experiences was helpful to their role as a supervisor, where they now had to have more of a broader perspective for the entire CG process. The artists also appeared concurred that their role was now more oriented toward assuring that each artist and sub-department had what it needed to keep things moving. Each artist, now CG supervisor, addressed the role of collaboration and orienting the efforts of a series of artists towards optimizing their part of the process and then forwarding it on to the next part of the pipeline. The supervisors each addressed how they were spending less time as artists and more time as team leaders coordinating the efforts of the primary artists.

Bibliography

Benavides-Piccione R, Regalado-Reyes M, Leon-Espinosa G, Rojo C, Insausti R, Segev I, Defelipe J (2020). Differential Structure of Hippocampal CA1 Pyramidal Neurons in the Human and Mouse, in Cerebral Cortex, pg 730-752. available at
doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhz122

Murdock KL (2017). Working with NURBS Surfaces, in Autodesk Maya 2017, Basics Guide. chapter 5, pg 127-165, SDC Publications, Mission, Kansas, USA.

Tickoo S (2017). NURBS Curves and Surfaces, chapter 3, in Autodesk Maya 2018. pg 3.2 - 3.29, Cadcim Technologies Publishers, Shererville Indiana, USA..

Tran A (2014). Modeling a neuron in Maya 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhHlelGB1qE.