Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

Sheridan College will partner with SideFX, a leading computer graphics software company, to help themachieve breakthrough delivery of solutions within the area of digital character animation. At the core, Houdiniis a fully procedural system that allows artists to create non-destructive workflows. This workflow allows astudio and its artists to create iterations and rapidly share hierarchies with various teams along the animationpipeline. A procedural system can further allow teams to collaborate internally and share assets and scenehierarchy remotely. By sharing resources within the pipeline productions become streamlined making themefficient and cost effective. The proposed project will center on research and development of characteranimation workflows within Houdini, mainly in the areas of animation and simulation of photo realistic digitalcharacters, rules and behavioral actions. The results will demonstrate the advantages of digital charactersanimation in a procedural workflow. The applications will include integration of digital humans,computer-generated characters that exhibit life-like qualities and demonstrate behaviors that react and interactwithin their environments. The potential for growth in the commercial application of digital human charactersand animation is being enabled by developments of increased demand for animation and visual effects in videogames, movies, and television. Success within this project will require a research and development process thatachieves close coupling and consideration of the relationship between the aesthetics of computer graphicscontent creation, graphical limitations of hardware, intimate knowledge of complex production andpost-production workflows, and software development. The project will enable a team of Sheridan's ScreenIndustries Research and Training Centre (SIRT) researchers from the digital arts and computer sciences towork together with an industry partner, SideFX, to develop solutions that benefit the company while having thesecondary benefit of helping to support the growth and international competitiveness of Ontario's media andentertainment sectors within areas of the animation and media industry.