Hollywood loves computer-generated animation, and everyone from Main Street to Wall Street is returning the love.
The winning combination of technology, art and commerce was on display this week in DreamWorks Animation's initial public offering. Building on the financial success of this year's "Shark Tale" and "Shrek 2" releases, DreamWorks on Thursday spun off the animation unit, raising $812m in a deal that saw shares soar from $28 to $38.75 by market close.
The IPO highlights the growing sway of technology in the animation business, where breakthroughs in software, processing power and data storage can be as important as raw artistic ability.
"No matter how much faster computers get, it takes the same amount of time to render computer animated movies, because the effects keep getting more sophisticated," says Scott Owen, a professor of computer science at the University of Georgia and an adviser for Siggraph, the computer animation industry's main annual trade show.
Computer-generated, animated feature films are drawing rave reviews for their stunning visual effects and clever writing. But the industry -- and the technology behind it -- is still in its infancy. That's fuelling a cocky you-haven't-seen-anything-yet attitude in the business, with predictions of future breakthroughs that could one day create realistic skin tones and facial expressions capable of mimicking human actors perfectly.
For "Shark Tale," DreamWorks' software developers created more than a dozen new custom software tools, with over 2,300 features and enhancements.
Two of the biggest advancements in the field in recent years have involved creating the illusion of reflected light. Stanford University experts Henrik Wann Jensen, Stephen R. Marschner and Pat Hanrahan wrote a technical paper detailing the breakthrough algorithm -- subsurface scattering -- for which they won an Oscar. Subsurface scattering allows animators to create the illusion of translucency, or light passing through skin or marble.
Another technique DreamWorks has pioneered is global illumination, an effect that shows the natural way light reflects in a room or across surfaces in a given setting. For "Shark Tale", the production team used a tool for a form of global illumination called a bounce shader, which gauges where and how light will bounce from surface to surface. The visual effects team used the tool to create the illusion of natural light and shadows for undersea scenes.
