Focus on Peipei Yuan previz with XSI

Interview with Peipei YuanFreelance animator Peipei Yuan talks about creating previz sequences for blockbuster movies, her second career as a stuntwoman and breakdancer and women in the cg industry. Her feature credits include Spider-man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3, Superman Returns and Matrix Revolutions.June, 7th, 2007, by Raffael Dickreuter, Bernard Lebel (origin)

....It's been a blast as a freelancer in the LA area because I've had the opportunity to work with many amazing artists on different movies and jobs. I enjoy working in the art departments, being surrounded by so much creativity imagination and ideas. The most enjoyable part of previz work is working with directors to help them figure out significant sequences in their movies. I also like working with different places because it keeps my on my toes and makes projects exciting.

Tell us about how previz was used on recent projects you worked on and how much of it eventually of ends up on the screenI worked on Spiderman 3 and had the opportunity to work with Sam Raimi and some amazing story board artists like Gabe Harding, Jeff Lynch, and Rick Newsome.

A lot of the shots that I worked on ended up in the movie. It seems most of the shots that require previzing, tend to be some of the most refined and dynamic shots, which help hype up the movie. There were many complicated fights and sequences in Spidy III. Along with Gabe and two other artists, we planned out the Black Spidy and Sandman fight in the subway tunnels.They began to shoot the sequence even before we were completely done with it. Sometimes there were moments I refer to as "DURA-VIS" when they need previz shots done right away so they can figure out how to shoot them on set.In general, I think the story board artists worked hard to incorporate the previz in to the best type of story boards. I also worked on some dream sequence shots with Rick Newsome. I was really surprised that the "Italian Suit" sequence that I prevized was not cut. It was one of those sequences that I felt some people were questioning the necessity of me previzing it. Sam had asked me to choreograph some dance moves for Tobey to do strutting down the street.I think since Sam knew I was a dancer, he had asked me to act out a couple of the actions in his office, and then decided to have me previz it. I created a cute sequence with some of my simple dance moves, and edited it to one of my favorite greasy beats band funk songs, and the whole sequence with all my moves ended up in the movie! It was funny animating dance moves.

Spider-man 3
I was on an all male team of 5, under proof inc. Charlie Gibson as visual effects sup, and rich lee as previz lead. It seemed as though Gore utilized previz not only look and feel, but also story telling. He wanted nice looking previz, with characters that showed facial expressions, and we worked hard to make the previz look nice with effects and nice textures. We used Maya for the previz, and I was lucky to work with talented artist liks Marc Chu from ILM, Scott Meadows, and Robin Roepstorff.specifically,For II: dead mans chest, I worked on the kracken attack sequences where the kracken tentacles are attacking the black pearl, as well as some shots involving the flying dutchman. I found Maya's particle instancer to be very useful for wood explosions etc.For III, i worked a bit on the GreenFlash and some shots in the end when Davy and Jack are on a mast fighting over the chest that contains his heart, I also worked on some shots at the end of the movie.

Tell us how it is working as a previz artist on productions. Does it include a lot of pressure, long hours and tight deadlines or do productions now leave enough time for the process?

It depends on the production. From my experience, commercials and music videos are the worst time pressures. Usually all nighters and weekenders are required. For feature films there are moments where we have to stay late to get deliveries out for presentations, but generally the schedules are not as severe. It's all pretty stressful when some people in the industry don't understand how long previz takes, and demand long difficult complex sequences on the fly.

What projects do you consider some of the highlights of your career so far?

Pirates of the Caribbean, Spidy III, Sky High, Chronicles of Riddick, The Panic Room, Van Helsing, Elf, The Matrix Revolutions. Right now I'm on National Treasure II with two other female previz artists who have been doing previz for a while. We are like sisters and it's really refreshing to be working with all girls for the first time. We're cranking out a car chase sequence... Hot stuff... Girls can animate car chases too...

Do you have any funny story to share that happened during a job of yours?

Too many... it's really funny being one of few women amongst so many male computer geeks. One of my most favorite moments is when I was working late hours at PLF on this music video for Mariah Carey called OH BOY. It was all very stressful, we were all lack of sleep, and it was 4 am in the morning. Kent Seki, the animation supervisor was on the phone with the clients getting comments from them and apparently they were very stressed also, and demanding deliveries sooner. We were all sitting there quiet listening to him speak loudly to the clients, his voice was getting louder and more agitated, and finally when he got off the phone without taking a breath, he started ordering everyone around to do tasks. Then he proceeded to yell "EVERYONE JUST CALM DOWN". I turned around to look at him in the center of the room, and no one was saying anything, everyone was just quietly clicking away at their workstations. It was a great moment we all laugh at all the time, he was being Hector the Projector.

How was it for you being one of the fewer women in this industry?

It's been fun. I notice that because I'm not a man, I don't really have to battle with male egos. All the guys seem to act differently towards me, than they do amongst each other. I feel that most of the time I'm not afraid to say "I don' know how to do it, but I will figure it out" whereas, I feel some male animators don't feel comfortable admitting when they don't know how to do something. Not all male animators are the same, but I've noticed there is sometimes a lot of dissension amongst each other. I feel like being a woman makes it easier to work with other male animators, directors and storyboard artists. There are some actions and animations I feel I'm more knowledgeable about because of my feminity, like animating the way women move, or dance, or fall, or react. In previz I get to study and animate many different things, from creatures like werewolves, Draculas, Animals, to mechanical objects like cars, engines, the inside of VHS machines. It's been fun animating drifts and peel outs in car chases, as well as what really happens in side a VHS machine, or how a Volkswagen turbo charged engine works, or how a soldier blows up.I enjoy being a previz artist because I am required to be knowledgeable about everything, and not getting pigeon holed in to just doing ONE thing. I have to know about everything from 3d modeling and animation, to 2d texture creating, to texture mapping, rendering, editing, and sound editing, timing, look and feel. The best part is being involved with the development of the story and shot compositions.I don't like getting pigeon holed in to one thing, so that's why previz is perfect for me, I like to do a little of everything.
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3Do you feel this meant disadvantages or advantages for you?Advantages because it's always nice to break up the male testosterone in a work place. I like hanging out with the boys... It's nothing different from everything else I've done in my life.

What features of XSI do you find very useful and which areas should be improved?

All day every day I compare Maya to XSI, since I've worked heavily and intensely in both softwares doing previz and final work.There are things here and there that I would love in XSI that are in Maya, and vice versa. Over all, I really love some of the animation tools in XSI, like the ease of expressions, making custom parameters, saving presets, the graph editor. I feel XSI is a great standalone software for previz. As well as the OGL mode for hardware capturing on the fly.But for a detailed description of my favorite and least favorite aspects of XSI:(All of these assessments were on different machines, but mostly high end workstations, and agreed upon by my female previz friends.) It happens to be that I compare to Maya since it's the only other software I use for previz, and it really helps me properly assess what is needed in both softwares. I started using XSI for previz and visual effects in 2000 and most of my Maya previz work was from 2003-2007 in Chronicles of Riddick, Sky High, Pirates II & III, and Spiderman III.

MODELING

Generally, XSI is great for polygon modeling. i generally use XSI to do quick modeling even to import in to Maya.For previz, the measure tools in Maya are handy, how you can interactively move your nulls and the distance updates. I would really like an XSI measuring tool, that can measure length of a non linear curve as well as two points on a curve.I love how XSI deals with origins, pivot points, centers, freezing transformations, and general working with pivots and nulls, as well as the child compensation mode that Maya lacks. I like the hierarchy setup in XSI better because u have options to have child compensation on or constraint compensation.I like how the interactive pivot in XSI works, and allows you to move the pivot anywhere, just by hitting the alt key. The way freezing centers work in XSI are in certain ways better than Maya, since you can't freeze a null so that it's off in space, but the transforms are all zeroed out.

ANIMATION

I love the fcurve editor in XSI, because of the preciseness in the handles, and typing in values for length of handles as well as angles.The dope sheet is Maya seems to work more smoothly. The XSI dope sheet is not user friendly, and seems clumsy and inaccurate in manuevering key frames around like Maya is.I don't like how XSI by default re-evaluates fcurves when you add keys in between keys.there should be an option to the way you would like your fcurves to interpolate after you've added keys. Maya does a better default job of interpolating keys on existing fcurves the timeline in Maya is very useful especially along side with character sets. I hear there are character sets in xsi6 but i haven't used them..i like the XSI mixer, always have, it works well to save clips of animation out and re-map the fcurves on to other characters with the same rig setup, as well as combining keyframes with source clips very conveniently. i like being able to make cycles, and deactivate certain channels for detail animation.For instance if i create a walk cycle, i can bring the clip on to a character and deactivate his head channels so that i can manually animate his head looking around wherever i want it to but still have the walk cycle.Animated constraints are easily accessible in XSI, as surface deformation animations, which come in handy all the time.

DYNAMICS

I love Maya particle effects especially the particle instancer, the user interface for Maya's particles is much easier than XSI.

RENDERING

XSI passes are the best for final. the passes in Maya aren't as useful.

USER INTERFACE

The user interface for tools, that show real time update on adjustments is very handy in XSI. For instance when i am doing polygon reduction, I can just move the sliders and see the model update in real time, as opposed to Maya, i have to type in the value hit enter, and then see my results.XSI transparency sorting is much better in OGL mode. Which is what we use in previz a lot. The default set up is much better. Maya doesn't handle transparencies in OGL very well. I like the drag and drop function in the software, you can drag images right in to the render tree.

Anything you would like to say to the CG community?

I'm interested in hearing from previz animators/artists or visual effects artists who are also stuntpeople, martial artists, bboys and bgirls. Since these are two things that take a lot of time, it's rare to meet people who are passionate about both. I'm also interested in hearing from people on their thoughts and experiences doing previz, and maybe seeing other people's work. So check my website out at breakgirl.com.