The Algorithms Behind Moana’s Animated Ocean | Hacker News Reader

The Algorithms Behind Moana’s Animated Ocean

theatlantic.com

140 pointsjansho28 comments

Very nice. In the 1990s, when I was doing Softimage physics plug-ins, I met the guy who did the first good water surface shader. The first application was Waterworld, which was such an awful movie the reputation rubbed off on his plug-in. Then he sold some to Titanic, and the business improved.

(Add-ons for Softimage were a crappy business. "400 people chasing $4M in revenue", one Softimage rep told me.)

I loved Waterworld!!

At least it wasn't the Postman, that's the best thing I can say.

What's-her-face was good in both... (jeanne tripplehorn)[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000675/?ref_=tt_cl_t12]

I loved Postman!!

I liked that part where he only rang twice.

""" “You know it’s hard for me to go to the beach nowadays,” she said. “When I’m there, I’m looking at how foam dissipates, at how the water recedes back into the ocean, the cadence and the rhythm of the little breaks. I’m looking at how the beach itself is modeled to create the reef breaks, how the light affects the water, the clarity of the water itself, the colors. There’s just a million things going through my head.” """

Yup. Once a graphics nerd ... always a graphics nerd. This is me looking at everything.

Ah yes, the beauty of a flower.

CNET did an in depth video last year that I think does a better job without the fluff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-HG8IA-2TI

I didn't see any particular algorithms in this paper, I felt kinda let down.

The water on Moana was cool, but the hair was way cooler!

I wonder how soon we'll have animated movies that seem entirely realistic, including the actors.

(I know, not a goal of this movie).

Computer graphics are already better than a lot of people realize, because now you only "see" the bad effects. The good effects you often don't notice. Highly relevant YouTube video: https://youtu.be/bL6hp8BKB24

While they may not quite be there yet, I think a lot of the modern animated movies are deliberately affecting a style, rather than being forced into one by the technology.

The problem is they often look interesting instead of realistic.

Take the bouncing door in front of the wall of fire in matrix. It's nothing like an actual fire or actual detonation etc, but because the film is of a simulated world you can just say that looks cool. On the other hand CGI backgrounds that look overly crisp or water that looks right to people that don't pay attention to actual water are more a style question than a capability question.

Real fire tends to be less photogenic than movie fire, so the CGI is replicating movie fire well instead of actual fire poorly.

Something I have wondered often.

Why animate a movie, if you all your characters are human beings? I don't get it. Isn't the whole point of animation to bring creatures and stuff into life in fantastic ways...

Think Tom & Jerry. You cannot do that using a conventional movie (unless you have Jim carry at your disposal, of course)

It feels so pointless when animated movies try to get accurate portrayal of human attributes.

That is not at all the point of being an animation!

Cheaper talent, risk-free stunts, don't have to worry as much about an actor getting seriously ill or dying during filming (voice acting can be time-compressed, and you can replace someone much more easily). CGI actors don't have bad days on the set.

I'm sure there are more reasons. Ultimately I think it gives a director much more control.

Also, CGI actors don't age, and they don't need contracts. And they can be copyrighted.

Another thing is: they can be "optimized", like, god forbid, given larger eyes, or made unnaturally thin.

Because art :)

In Benjamin Button Brad Pitt was CGI about 80% of the time.

Already there.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/star-w...

God no, his face when he talked to the camera looked like a rubber mask

I have talked to other people who found CGI Peter Cushing convincing but I did not. I'm confident I would have picked him out as CGI even if I hadn't recognized him as a long-dead actor. (Same for CGI young Carrie Fisher.)

(Still impressive, though, and I expect the uncanny valley to be bridged within the next five, maybe ten years.)

A step ahead of James Cameron's Avatar?

Hmm I'm not sure though. Where would all that celebrity goss come from then..

Look at the backs of the characters in Avatar. They don't animate realistically. I.e. there aren't enough degrees of freedom in e.g. the shoulder blades, in the sub-surface muscle, and in the secondary motion of the fat.

Fully realistic nude humans are still a ways off.

When it first came out I was so focused on the environment (especially in a 3D theater) that I didn't even notice how bad the bodies and mouths looked.

I recently rewatched it and it does not hold up well. Hopefully when they come out with special anniversary editions in the future, they'll redo all of that with the latest technology.

> Hopefully when they come out with special anniversary editions in the future, they'll redo all of that with the latest technology.

I'm sure the four sequels being made will look great.

Along similar lines there was a fascinating video about modelling different types of snow for Frozen which goes into some detail about the Material Point Method (MPM) algorithms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0kyDKu8K-k

Reply on news.ycombinator.com