Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Pixar

Charles Tappan

Brent Burley

Daniel Teece

Rasmus Tamstorf

Christopher Richard Schroers

Mark Joseph Meyer

Christian Eisenacher

Andrew Selle

Gregory Nichols

Sean Jenkins

Henry Allen Driskill

Clara Fernandez

Iman Sadeghi

Joan Massich

Antoine Milliez

Brett W Achorn

Hayko Riemenschneider

Techniques for aligning object representations for animation include analyzing a source object representation and a target object representation to identify a category of the source object and a category of the target object. Based on the category or categories of the objects, a feature extraction machine learning models is selected. The source object representation and the target object representation are provided as input to the selected feature extraction machine learning model to generate respective semantic descriptors and shape vectors for the source and target objects. Based on the semantic descriptors and the shape vectors for the source and target objects, an alignment machine learning model generates an aligned target object representation that is aligned with the source object representation and usable for animating the target object.

Object alignment techniques for animation

There is provided a method for ray-mediated illumination control. The method includes identifying a first activation region corresponding to one of an origin and a destination of a ray, where the ray is described by a ray data associated with the ray. The method further includes identifying a second activation region corresponding to the other one of the origin and the destination of the ray, interpreting an illumination rule for the ray based on at least one of the first activation region and the second activation region, and modifying an illumination in one of the first activation region and the second activation region based on the illumination rule and the ray data.

Ray-mediated illumination control

There is provided a system and method for artist friendly control of three-dimensional object shading, particularly hair. A methodology is disclosed for deriving a pseudo scattering function over a domain of Artist Friendly Controls (AFCs) from a physically based scattering function over a domain of Physically Based Controls (PBCs). The pseudo scattering function can provide intuitive decoupled adjustments of specific important visual characteristics while still providing a convincing and aesthetically pleasing result. An end user such as an artist may thus control the values, or AFCs, to implement specific aesthetic features for the shading of objects as seen on a display. The pseudo scattering function may be utilized for single scattering and multiple scattering models of hair shading.

System and method for artist friendly controls for hair shading

A method for a computer system includes receiving a plurality of values for an illumination parameter associated with an illumination source for a scene, determining a plurality illumination contributions for a surface of an object within the scene, in response to the plurality of values, determining a plurality of texture maps associated with the surface of the object in response to the plurality of illumination contributions, wherein each of the plurality of texture maps is associated with each of the plurality of values for the illumination parameter, receiving a value for the illumination parameter at render time from a user, determining a texture map associated with the surface of the object, in response to the value for the illumination parameter and in response to the plurality of texture maps, rendering the surface of the object using the texture map to form an image, and displaying the image to the user.

Directable lighting method and apparatus

Textures are transferred between different object models using a point cloud. In a first phase, a point cloud in 3-D space is created to represent a texture map as applied to a first, or 'source,' object model. In a second phase, a value for a target texel of a texture map associated with a second, or 'target,' object model, is determined by identifying the 3-D location on a surface defined by the target object model that maps to the location of the target texel and assigning a value based on the nearest point (or points) to that location in the 3-D point cloud. To the extent that differences between the source and target object models are minor, the texture transfer can be accomplished without loss of information or manual cleanup.

Three-dimensional location-based texture transfers

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Los Angeles, CA, United States of America

Charles Tappan