Adopting the simplicity of our company motto, our Technology Team strives to create the best environment for Animals (including ourselves) to be able to create great work both on and behind the screen.
To achieve that, we have the following principles:
WE ARE A PART OF THE FILMMAKING PROCESS. Our tech team is here to be a part of making movies! To encourage that all technology team members are invited to screenings, wrap parties, receive film swag and are included in the credits of every film we create.
WE SHARE OUR INNOVATION WITH THE WORLD. We receive many benefits from being a part of an industry that shares techniques, experience and even source code to drive us all forward. We are committed to reciprocation and encourage our teams to contribute to open source initiatives and present our findings back to the community-at-large.
WE SUPPORT CAREER GROWTH INDEPENDENT OF LOCATION. Our teams, processes and decision-making are made globally. Our Sydney and Vancouver studios are peers and leadership is distributed and encouraged in both locations.
WE SUPPORT AND DRIVE IMPROVEMENTS IN DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION. Diversity in technology is a global issue, and Animal prioritizes the mentorship, promotion and recruitment of a diverse workforce.
WE PRIORITIZE BALANCE. Making animated films is a marathon, not a sprint. We support and promote work-life balance for our teams to remain healthy and happy.
On this site, you’ll find information about the four P’s of our Technology Organisation: Pipeline, Partnerships, Products, and Papers.
Our most important ‘P’, People, are interspersed throughout these sections but watch the Animal Stories videos below that highlight our teams and their close relationship to the production process.
Pipelines are critical to animated films. With at least 130,000 frames in every finished product, and hundreds of people working together for years to generate them, the coordination and efficient flow of information and data are critical to success.
Animal Logic has been creating animated films since the 2006 release, Happy Feet. Since that time our pipeline has undergone many iterations and improvements to meet changing needs (millions of LEGO bricks!) and changing infrastructure (Cloud Enablement). Most recently, we were an enthusiastic early adopter of Pixar’s Universal Scene Description, and it makes up the foundation of our modern pipeline. We encourage everyone to explore our ALab, a reference data set of how we use USD in production here.
Despite all the changes since animating those dancing penguins almost two decades ago, the fundamental principles of our pipeline have remained the same:
Context is King: Good creative decisions require accurate context. We review all material as it is intended to be seen, with as much context as possible (lighting, simulations, fur, fx, crowd, etc).
Automate Renders: We provide that context through automated renders. Any reviewable step in the pipeline relies on automated rendering, and the data published behind those renders provide up-to-date context for downstream departments. This automated approach ensures errors are caught as early as possible.
CI/CD Pipeline: Continually delivering data to upstream departments from automated renders ensures a high degree of parallelisation and an up-to-date context. Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery is not just for software.
Atomic Pipeline: Break down artist work into atomic elements that can be iterated, tracked, and versioned independently. This enables our automation, allowing context with minimal human input.
Diagram It: We’re visual people who need visual workflows to ensure clear communication. With long-established diagram conventions, we strive to represent complex workflows with clear diagrams. Our goal is to represent our entire pipeline as a dataflow graph.
These principles facilitate creative iteration at a grand scale, and they guide everything we do when configuring show pipelines.