Section: Overall Objectives

Context

With the fast increase of computational power and of memory space, increasingly complex and detailed 3D content is expected for virtual environments. Unfortunately, 3D modeling methodologies did not evolve as fast: most users still use standard CAD or 3D modeling software (such as Maya, 3DS or Blender) to design each 3D shape, to animate them and to manually control cameras for movie production. This is highly time consuming when large amounts of detailed content need to be produced. Moreover the quality of results is fully left in the user's hand, which restricts applicability to skilled professional artists. More intuitive software such as Z-Brush are restricted to shape design and still require a few months for being mastered by sculpture practitioners. Reducing user load can be done by capturing and re-using real objects or motions, at the price of restricting the range of possible content. Lastly, procedural generation methods can be used in specific cases to automatically get some detailed, plausible content. Although they save user's time, these procedural methods typically come at the price of control: indirect parameters need to be tuned during a series of trial and errors until the desired result is reached. Stressing that even skilled digital artists tend to prefer pen and paper than 3D computerized tools during the design stages of shapes, motion, and stories, Rob Cook, vice president of technology at Pixar animation studios recently stated (key-note talk, Siggraph Asia 2009): new grand challenge in Computer Graphics is to make tools as transparent to the artists as special effects were made transparent to the general public.

Could digital modeling be turned into a tool, even more expressive and simpler to use than a pen, to quickly convey and refine shapes, motions and stories? This is the long term vision towards which we would like to advance.