Just a flip of a fin: Animated movement worshop a huge hit

Just a flip of an animated fin in "Nemo" can take days to create, Justin Horne said.

"That's why Pixar (studios) are so massive," said the University of Idaho Virtual Technology and Design junior.

But Horne was able to demonstrate animated movement with just a small team of VTD students - and a laptop - as part of "Wow is this real?," a Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival workshop Friday.

Set up with a nearly $20,000 motion capture program, a UI dance team member, Shaudralyn Parry, showed off her improvisational dance moves to a crowd in the Idaho Commons Reflections Gallery. Parry sported a black suit fitted with white infrared bulbs, which looked like small golf balls. Behind her sat a projector screen, which displayed a digitized model of her movements.

Although it's not visible to the naked eye, Horne said the bulbs shoot out infrared light, which is then bounced to cameras set strategically in a room.

"The cameras track the balls and figures where they are in space," he said.

This creates a type of "computer skeleton," he said, which looks much like a bendable, wooden artist's mannequin that would sit on a desk.

That model, and its movement, is then recorded and stored in a library of motion files for future VTD use. Horne said he wasn't sure what the dance movements would be used for, but just having the data is useful. The bigger the library of motion, the more options in the future.

"If your character is a 60-year-old arthritic librarian, and you've got a 20-year-old dancer, they're not going to look the same," Horne said.

Parry's movements included jazz hands, high kicks and a salsa number, as well as some improvisational moves to more current music.

Sometimes, Parry would reset herself in the middle of the room, holding her arms out in a "T" shape.

"She goes back to the middle, because when she gets too close to the edge, she'll lose her shape," Horne said, pointing to the screen, from where the modeled foot had disappeared. "That's what she's doing when she goes back to that 'T' pose."

Although the motion capture program cost almost $20,000, it still can't track hand movement, Horne said, and Parry's face wasn't replicated on screen.

"More advanced rigs have a helmet with a camera and 50 dots aimed at a face," Horne said.

But Renee Olson still seemed pretty impressed with UI's gear.

A parent volunteer with Cavendish Town Elementary School, Olson accompanied 22 children to the jazz festival starting at 10 a.m. Friday.

"We thought the kids would enjoy finding out all about those animated movies," she said. "You learn it's a lot more complicated than you think."

Lindsey Treffry can be reached at (208) 883-4640 or by email to ltreffry@dnews.com. Follow her #hampjazz coverage on Twitter @LindseyTreffry.