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Software, Animation and the Moving Image
What's in the Box?
A. Wood
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eBook - ePub
Software, Animation and the Moving Image
What's in the Box?
A. Wood
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About This Book
Software, Animation and the Moving Image brings a unique perspective to the study of computer-generated animation by placing interviews undertaken with animators alongside an analysis of the user interface of animation software. Wood develops a novel framework for considering computer-generated images found in visual effects and animations.
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1
Getting to Know Software: A Study of Autodesk Maya
Abstract: Drawing on software studies, Wood offers an original methodology for approaching software by analysing the user interface of the 3-D animation software Autodesk Maya in the context of its paratexts. This entails scrutinizing the operational logic of the software as it appears on the user interface, the frames and patterns associated with the surface and also the deeper structures of the software. In Getting to Know Software, Wood also looks back into Mayaâs history and gives an account of the context of Autodesk Mayaâs production and release, and a media archaeology of movement algorithms more generally. The discussion draws on interviews with users of software. This material provides many insights into what animators do as they create moving images using software.
Wood, Aylish. Software, Animation and the Moving Image: Whatâs in the Box? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137448859.0005.
What does software look like? A first thought might be that software never looks anything at all, since it exists inside a computer. It can only be seen through some kind of mediation, such as lines of executing code visible on a graphical user interface, running down the screen Matrix-like in films or TV shows, or, as an imaginative interpretation. Google the word âdigitalâ, select images, and you will likely find an array of similar imaginative interpretations popping up. These frequently feature zeros and ones, perhaps arranged like a tunnel running off into the distance or as an electronic aurora borealis with zeros and ones embedded in bright white strands of light. Wreck-It Ralph (USA, 2012), an animated feature about game characters, goes a little further when it briefly depicts a gameâs software. The dastardly King Candy reigns over the code of Sugar Rush, and, seeking to extend his control, goes into the space where the software is being executed (Figure 1.1).
Interestingly, the space is depicted as having no gravity. As King Candy twirls onto his back, its dimensions are uncertain, with spatial definition given only in a central mass of connecting strands that look rather like cable. Closer too, these strands connect semi-translucent 3-D boxes that flash on and off, presumably to indicate when they are active or not. The strands and boxes are reminiscent of flow diagrams. Such a depiction of software is effective in capturing a common understanding of software as something that carries data, works in multiple ways at the same time, and is almost transparent and rather abstract.
FIGURE 1.1 Digital space in Wreck-It Ralph
Note: Still from Wreck-It Ralph (2012) showing King Candy floating in the gravity-free and dimensionally indistinct space of software.
Source: Image ©Disney Studio.
Finding out more about software is the work of this chapter. Without unpicking its code, my approach is to give an account of software through its user interface (UI), where its logic becomes legible and meaningful. As described in the introduction, software is far from neutral. Adrian Mackenzie makes an equivalent point when writing about programs and operating systems such as Java and Linux: âThe incorporation of prior knowledges, codings and practices within the sequence of operations, attaches specific frames and patterns to the relatively abstract space and time of algorithmic processesâ (Mackenzie, 2006, p. 64). Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Ian Bogost too advance a similar insight by examining how frames and patterns can be discernible in a playerâs encounter with computer games. Noah Wardrip-Fruin reasons that expressive processing in digital media are legible examples of âthings that we need to understand about software in generalâ (Wardrip-Fruin, 2009, p. 5). Ian Bogost argues that the procedural systems of many different kinds of games generate behaviour grounded in rule-based models, mounting logic-based arguments influencing a playerâs decisions (Bogost, 2007). For users of software, the user interface is where frames and patterns with the potential to influence their decisions are most evident, where digital media are legible and software behaviour folds together with user behaviours.
In their inaugural work on platform studies, Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost comment:
The interface, although an interesting layer, is what sits between the core of the program and the user; it is not the program itself. A chess program may have a text interface, a speech interface, or a graphical interface, but the rules of chess and the abilities of a simulated opponent are not part of the interface. (Montfort and Bogost, 2009, p. 145)
For anyone interested in a program or platform, an interface offers fewer opportunities for thinking about how those things work than do the things themselves. For this study, which is attentive to how software makes an appearance, and the ways in which users engage with software through that appearance, the UI is the most interesting layer. As a bundle of toolsets, it gives access to the processes of the multi-functional operations of software. In Autodesk Maya, the focus of this study, you can model, animate, light, rig, and render, and each of these suites of functionality have a vast array of toolsets. It would be reasonable ask whether or not a UI simply gives a user easy access to sets of tools. The answer is both yes and no. The main functional purpose of a UI is indeed to provide access to various toolsets, but at the same time, the UI reveals levels of operational logic associated with the programming of the software.
Noah Wardrip-Fruin, in his work on expressive processing, a software studies approach to computer games, introduces the framework of operational logic:
Those working in commercial areas of digital media, such as computer games, construct systems that operationalize ideas of narrative structure, character behavior, linguistic interaction, and so on. Each of these is something that, in other domains, we are accustomed to scrutinizing closely, often seeking to understand something of their underlying logic. But in the area of software, in which the underlying logic exists in an explicit encoding that can be examined, this takes place very rarely. (Wardrip-Fruin, 2009, p. 320)
My first tactic in making Autodesk Maya less abstract is to tease out the operational logic that appears on its user interface. Scrutinizing the options available to users and their mode of presentation reveals the frames and patterns associated with the surface and also the deeper structures of the software. Through these, I consider how the interface puts into operation ideas around creative work in the context of an automated system. Excavating the operational logic of Mayaâs UI is only a starting point for making the software less abstract. As David Berry says: âThe challenge is to bring software back into visibility so that we can pay attention to both what it is (ontology), where it has come from (through media archaeology and genealogy) but also what it is doing (through a form of mechanology ...)â (Berry, 2011, p. 4). Knowing about Mayaâs operational logic tells us about what it is, and forms the focus of the first section of the following discussion. Gaining an understanding of where Maya comes from entails looking back into its history, both of the software specifically and computer animation software more widely. Since Maya is a large and multifunctional software, my focus is specifically on timing. By looking at the different drivers behind software development, how this history has become embedded in its operational logic, Mayaâs UI is thought through as a network of interlocking discourses. To establish this perspective, in section two, I assemble the context of Mayaâs production and its release, along with an archaeology of movement algorithms. Finally, to make what software does less of a series of abstract processes, I turn to the insights gained from interviews with users of software. This allows me to think through how and where a user and software interact with each other and to consider the ways in which agency is distributed between user and software.
Locating the operational logic of Autodesk Maya
Lev Manovich too is interested in the connection between a UI and program and comments that the principles of a program are projected onto its UI: âThe principles of contemporary computer programming are âprojectedâ to the UI level â shaping how users work with media via software applications practically, and how they understand this process cognitivelyâ (Manovich, 2013, p. 219â220). The UI offers an array of toolsets to anyone working with software. In Maya, the toolsets can be accessed through various modes of presentation. For instance, when modelling, toolsets give access to the modelled entities as both shapes and also packages of data. Maya user Ben Thomas notes the different ways the UI allow him to engage with objects he has created: âI like to see it with the interface [the viewport]. You can do things in hypergraph, where you are viewing lots of texts and names and numbers, but coming from the background that I do, I prefer to see it in front of meâ. For the moment my focus will be on the viewport (the hypergraph is returned to later), where Thomas can see the objects with which he is working. The viewport is designed to give users an impression of direct interaction with the shapes they create using various modelling tools sets. In the viewport, as the image of a âsack-in-spaceâ shows, modelled shapes appear as volumetric objects projected in virtual space, and any inputs from the user almost instantaneously appear on the screen (Figure 1.2).
Whether used in its three-dimensional perspective or orthogonal view, within this framed space, a userâs access to and control over the object is central. When working within a perspective view, a modeller can see their model from all sides, as well as zoom in and out to increase or decrease the detail. Referring to his experiences of modelling, Barry Sheridan of Digimania comments: âI still like having something 3-D in front of you and being able to spin around, I still like all that stuff, I still like the immediacy of being able to manipulate something seemingly floating in front of youâ. Sheridan describes here the accessibility of the viewport, where users can see their model virtually projected, and where their interactions generated using a set of manipulators are immediately visible on the projected shapes. Models in the viewport are created using three different basic toolsets: polygons, NURBS, and subdivision surfaces. Which set the modeller works with depends on the kind of object they want to create, but usually it involves beginning with a series of primitive shapes to build the space filled by the model. Once the basic shape is in place, various other tool sets can be used to add more nuanced detail. For instance, Artisan is a feature within Maya were users access a sculpt tool to push, pull, and smooth areas of the model. As described in The Art of Maya: âPainting with Artisan is an intuitive way to make selections, sculpt surfaces and paint values on selected surfaces or multiple surfacesâ (Autodesk, 2008b, p. 52). The description of Artisan as intuitive echoes the observations of users for whom the viewport and various manipulators can be combined to give a sense of access and control. It gestures towards the familiarity of real-world space by projecting volumetric objects and allowing control over constructed spaces.
FIGURE 1.2 Image projected in Autodesk Mayaâs viewport
Note: The brown sack is a virtual projection in 3-D space, as seen in the perspective view in Autodesk Mayaâs viewport.
Source: Image ©Paul Hilton.
Such description and comments present the viewport as a place where artists are able to fully manipulate their objects. This emphasis fits not only with the functionality of the viewport, how it works, but doubles as a revelation of the logic expressed by the viewportâs processes. Expressive processing for Noah Wardrip-Fruin too doubles up as it conveys both the ways in which authors and artists can use the expressive potential of computational processes (as they use the viewport and other tools), and also that these processes themselves express meaning through their design and histories. When using Maya, artists clearly exploit the expressive potential of the software in creating animations. But in addition, these computational processes express âhumanly meaningful elements and structuresâ (Wardrip-Fruin, 2009, p. 156). They are not just toolsets allowing an artist to do something; rather their arrangements as toolsets are meaningful as opposed to abstract. Such a doubling of meaning is pursued here through an analysis of the visual organizations of the softwareâs UI. According to Wardrip-Fruin: â... the concept of expressive processing includes considering how the use of particular processes may express connection with a particular school of thought ... revealing connections with communities of thought in software engineering, statistics or a wide range of other areasâ (2009, p. 158â159). Following this logic, the manipulability of the objects in the viewport connects with the aim of making software accessible for artists, providing the impression of something in front of them. Layout artist Ben Thomas also describes a sense of immediacy, but this time in the context of dressing a set within a computer when using Maya:
What I loved about layout is that it was set dressing within the computer. Youâve got these buildings and assets or models. I was working on a sequence that involved London, the Thames North bank. It was my job to arrange these assets in a manner that the supervisor wanted. We had one set and then we could place multiple cameras within the sequence, so you didnât have to create one layout per shot. You had basically a set, and then you could place your cameras within that set.
As well as describing the immediacy of set dressing within the computer, Thomas is also gesturing towards the efficiency of using a computer to generate a virtual model that can be modified for different cameras, as opposed to creating several layouts for multiple cameras.
As users of Maya describe accessible objects seeming to float, or a set layout configured within the viewport, each conveys an impression of immediacy even though both activities are highly mediated. Paying more attention to the processes of mediation, and how they generate this sense of immediacy brings the operational logic of the software into the open. Ian Bogostâs notion of procedural rhetoric is helpful for thinking in closer detail about the ways software mediates: âProcedural rhetoric, then, is a practice of using processes persuasively. More specifically, procedural rhetoric is the practice of persuading through processes in general and computational processes in particularâ (Bogost, 2007, p. 3). Understood to be a technique for making arguments with computational systems, the procedural rhetoric of Mayaâs viewport is to persuade users of a seemingly direct interaction with objects and entities with which they are working. The mediations of the technology sit in the background as the artistry of the modeller or animator is foregrounded. To complicate my claim, the logic of this rhetoric is not, however, the only persuasive process in play on Mayaâs UI. It sits in direct contrast to another put forward through the dialog boxes sitting alongside, and frequently used in conjunction with the viewport. Figure 1.3 shows the viewport next to the channel box and layer editor (on the left), with the brown sack depicted as a shape as well as numbers and associated instructions. The presence of both persuasive processes creates a tension that establishes the operational logic of the software: creative work in the context of an automated system.
FIGURE 1.3 Autodesk Mayaâs viewport with channel box
Note: The shape of a sack projected in the viewport (left) alongside a dropdown dialog box that configures the image as data (right).
Source: Image ©Paul Hilton.
The dialog boxes, and their persuasive processes foregrounding the mediations of the software, are again explored as visual organizations on the UI. In addition to the viewport, which virtually projects the shape of any object, drop down windows augment immediate visual information about models, animation, rigging, lighting, shading or rendering. These drop down menus and dialog boxes demonstrate how Mayaâs programming deals with objects and movements as a series of datasets, rather than as shapes moving in space and time. Writing in 1998 about the UI design of Maya, George Fitzmaurice and Bill Buxton commented on their aim to expose the âdeep structureâ of the software. Though aware that artists may not really want to know much about Mayaâs deep structure: âproviding access and acquiring such understanding is often necessary for users to achieve their goals. Thus, we must find ways of exposing the deep structure to the user in ways that are compatible, intuitive and efficientâ (Fitzmaurice and Buxton, 1998, p. 64). Consequently, the primitive shapes visible and accessible in the viewport sit alongside dialog boxes that could include the channel box/attribute editor, the outliner, hypergraph, graph editor and the script editor. Dialog boxes depict schema showing relationships between packets of data constituting a scene, a contrast to the viewport where relationships are drawn between co-ordinates along lines of geometry, in other words as shapes. These schemas are logical configurations bringing deep structures closer to the surfaces. Layout ar...