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Interview With David Gallagher
David is currently working on Blue Sky's "Robots". He talks about his career, Ice Age, animation techniques, the upcoming Ice Age 2 and XSI.
October, 5th, 2004, by Raffael Dickreuter
 |  | David Gallagher, Animator at Blue Sky Studios.
| | |  | Ice Age..
|  | Blue Sky's upcoming film "Robots".
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How did you get started in the cg industry?
I began using computer graphics in college to make language-learning aids. I was hired by my Arabic professor to make interactive vocabulary-building tutorials. It was the first time I'd used a computer for more than word processing, and I found that hours would go by without my noticing. That's when I knew computer graphics was something I could get into.
A few years later, I had finished an undergraduate degree in Near Eastern Studies at Brigham Young University and was working in typeface design at an Arabic software company. Just before graduating I saw a 3D animated short film done by a student at BYU, the first real CG short ever done there. It inspired me, and amazed me all the more because it was done by my former college
neighbor, Jonathan Banta. He had earlier gone into cartooning for the student newspaper. I had decided that's exactly what I wanted to do and had a pretty successful run as a cartoonist there. When I saw his 3D film, I promptly decided to follow him again and get into 3D animation. I joke with him that I need to find out what he's doing now so I can copy him yet again.
I bought a computer and got the first 3D software for Windows (trueSpace, then called Caligari) and started messing around, doing atrocious stuff I still have hidden somewhere. I got a job doing 3D manhole covers and other construction-related things. Then I went to Viewpoint where I worked as a modeler. I worked for a year at a game company, Saffire. There was a lot of modeling and games going on in Utah. Next I worked by myself contracting out for small modeling, rigging, and animation jobs.
It would have been nice to go back to school to learn all this, but I already had a wife and baby, so took the circuitous route. Eventually I had talent enough to get hired by Blue Sky Studios just as they were starting pre-production on Ice Age. That was nearly five years ago and now we have three children and that baby is 11 yrs old.
A year and a half ago, I switched to being an animator here after showing some promise with some shots on Ice Age and other tests.
What well known work has had a big impact or inspiration on you and your career?
During my childhood Jungle Book was released and completely inspired me. From then on I was reading about animation and about Walt Disney and drawing flipbooks. I was also impressed by Harryhausen's Sinbad movie effects, especially the fighting skeletons. I'm still amazed by stop motion because I'm not good enough as an animator to get the timing right in one pass. I went on tentatively to a more academic future, but began seeing CG animation in the early 90s. Jurassic Park in 1993 got me hooked for good on computer animation.
How was it working in Germany and then going back to the US?
Well, I didn't "work" per se in Germany. I was a Mormon missionary from 1985 to 1987, which is unpaid volunteer church work. I'm pretty excited about my faith, so I was there bothering the locals. (Mormonism is a branch of Christianity)
If you look back do you feel your education prepared you for your job? (education has changed a lot since then)
I don't recommend doing things my way; graduate in one field then work for years trying to break into another. I would definitely be further along now if I had kept with my interest in animation, but I'm not sure I regret it. I like being well-rounded and having done many things. I've been a dishwasher, janitor, pool cleaner, forklift operator, desk clerk, fast food worker, deli worker, cashier, receptionist, gas station attendant, missionary, cartoonist, graphic designer.
But then none of those are exactly career highlights. I began having some success at Saffire, and I co-art directed a game. When I worked on my own, I scored a few good projects. Then at Blue Sky I'm happy to have been involved with Ice Age, then Robots. The latest highlight was to join the animation team and turn out to be a decent animator.
What is a typical work day like at Blue Sky and what are the big challenges you face?
When I'm working on shots for Robots animation, I come in by 9:00 for sweatbox where Chris Wedge, the director and Carlos Saldanha, co-director gives us critiques on our animation. We refine the motion over a few days or more of work, sometimes getting help from one of our inspiring Supervising Animators, Jim Bresnahan and Mike Thurmeier.
One of the big challenges is the changes to your work. Just getting good animation is not enough; it needs to fit the precise acting needs and directors' tastes for what should be happening in the context of the sequence, a reality that is not as settled as you might imagine. Sometimes a shot you've long completed and are proud of will be dropped from the movie only because that part has changed. I suppose it's helpful to be comfortable with the continuously destructive/constructive nature of this part of the production process.
One of my tasks over the last several months is guiding the Ice Age 2 character rigs so they'll be what the animation team wants. I look at the rigs and make suggestions for changes in preparation for when we'll begin animation on Ice Age 2.
I really enjoyed working on the first Ice Age, but I never envisioned it would be as successful as it was. I rigged Sid's (the sloth) body, Scrat's face, the Dodos, and some minor characters.
We didn't have a settled pipeline and --institutionally speaking-- hadn't figured out set solutions to rigs, so we worked closely together as we made most rigs from scratch, learning from each other. It wasn't especially efficient doing it that way (for instance, it was difficult to make broad changes across rigs) but nearly all the riggers at that point were also animators and modelers so we came at it from a result-oriented point of view and it turned out well.
You used to work with SOFTIMAGE|3D, tell us about the experience back then. - What is your opinion about XSI?
I heard about Jurassic Park having been animated in SOFTIMAGE|3D along with everything else notable back then, so I was intrigued. I began using it in 1995 and by 1996 I had bought one of the first lower-priced SOFTIMAGE|3D Windows NT hardware bundle solutions. It was a steal at 15 or 17k or whatever it was.
I slowly built up my proficiency using Softimage with the help of a very active (and quirky) online community. I didn't have the benefit of learning Softimage from coworkers. I struggled to compete with high quality work and before I knew it I was the one answering questions instead of asking them, at least in my specialty. A few years later, I produced some training videos for modeling and rigging characters, mostly because I found myself with no paying work for a few months.
I have a high opinion of XSI. It has animation features I wish I could be using daily at work. I really like the "normalize" feature in the Animation Editor -- seeing the function curves all at the same height and the same screen space. I love being able to drag the timeline right in the Animation Editor (right where the keys are instead of on the global timeline). The "3D fast playblack" buffer feature looks fantastic (like a 3D "playblast", in Maya terms).
If you look back, did you expect the industry to evlove this way? If you mean the 3D animation industry as a whole, I'm continuously surprised the movies (3D features) are so successful, one after the other. There's scarcely a failure yet.
One thing that irks me is the slow pace of 3D software development, but I think there I'm just being impatient. The reality is there are few paying customers --paying less every year-- and Softimage and their competitors are doing fine jobs, but for the past five or six years Softimage and Alias and probably the others are going back and rewriting their software base to extend the capabilities broadly. They're focusing on the big picture, where they should, but some of us are still waiting for some simple "small picture" improvements. I would have to say Softimage seems to be the most interested in both kinds of development.
But more importantly, I'm disappointed daily with the speed limitations of the current software/hardware/rig I need to deal with. Maybe eight years ago I ran low resolution character rigs at near realtime. Today, because of increased complexity demands and many other reasons, I wish I could run low res characters at those speeds. I wish people would stop pushing the envelope a bit and we could have some of the speed back. Of course, I'm exaggerating and probably suffering from memory lapse, but part of what I'm saying is true.
Is there anyhting you would like to tell the rest of the cg community?
A few things have come as surprises to me as I've gone from being a 3D animation wannabe type to feature film level capacity.
One: The difference between good animation / CG and mediocre is often just more, patient work. I used to wonder how the pros went about animating, or what rigs made it easy to do. But the best animation, in my opinion, is done with the very same tools and rigs; trying to make it "easy" often doesn't really help, it just takes away your control. (If a tool gets you 80% of the way there very quickly,
it doesn't matter if it makes the final 20% harder.) In other words, there's no great difference in the processes.
Two: In animation, the talent is important, but a big part of what a 3D animator can pull off is their "eye", their taste for what's good animation. For many people that comes only by being surrounded by big talents and pushing themselves
to compete, or in my case to keep up. So, refine your taste by honestly and directly comparing with the best.
Three: A lot of taking an animation from appealing poses to completion is watching each individual part moving in its own path and looking for bad motion, motion that's unsupported by surrounding positions. You can have parts move very quickly, but only if there's an ease in to it, however small. A frequent problem with animation reels is having motion that's too "clicky", some part of a pose jumps too far between frames unexpectedly. You can block part of the screen with your hand to find which part that is.
Oh, two more tricks. You can also squint hard enough that the characters are just a blur and watch the motion in broadstrokes imagining people or creatures were doing the actions. Also, you can flip the animation so it's a mirror image. These help you see the motion from a new, more objective point of view.
Related Links
Blue Sky Studios
Cineframe
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