Stop motion 3d printer

LAIKA use a Stratasys J750 for 3D Printing Stop Motion Characters

The award-winning, Stop Motion Characters created at LAIKA make no secret that the thousands of faces used in each film are 3D printed. Animators of such films as “Coraline” and “ParaNorman,” “The Boxtrolls” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” have counted on Stratasys additive technology to provide naturalistic facial animation for the stop-motion puppets that give the films their distinct look and feel.

“The idea was to harness the power of the computer and these emerging 3D printing technologies to try to push facial performance, or push a character’s performance into a whole new realm,” said Brian McLean, director of rapid prototype at LAIKA.

For more than a decade, the additive technology has been a creative mainstay at LAIKA, ever evolving with LAIKA’s increasingly ambitious artistic vision and rapid advancements in 3D printing and software. “It’s really kind of an insane process that we’re doing, where we’re taking 3D printing and we’re fusing it with this really old technique of stop-motion and replacement animation and forcing these two technologies and techniques together to come up with some amazing performances and amazing results,” said McLean.

McLean received a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2016, for pioneering the use of rapid prototyping for character animation in stop-motion film production. In turn, LAIKA seeks innovation around every corner, never settling for what’s already been done. “It takes us a very long time to decide on the feel for a new film,” said McLean. “There’s lots of experimentation before we arrive at the look of characters and the feel of the movie.” LAIKA also prides itself on increasingly complex stories with each film and “in order to tell a really complex story you want to be able to see and go along with that character’s emotional journey,” said McLean. “The quality of the 3D printing and the efficiency with which we’re printing these faces reached a point where each subsequent director wanted to have something more customized.”

Creative Driving Technology

“The decision to push the technology is very much driven by creative, said McLean. After the success of “Coraline,” LAIKA acknowledged both the power  of 3D printing and also its present limitations – namely, having to hand paint each individual face. “I still remember being in meetings with the director of “Coraline” and negotiating the number of freckles that “Coraline” had on each side of her face because we knew a painter had to hand paint each one of those freckles.”

Monkey from “Kubo and the Two Strings,” LAIKA’s fourth feature film

During early planning for their fourth film, “Kubo and the Two Strings,”  creators were faced with the realization that the three character designs under consideration were not possible with the 3D printing technology the Studio was currently using. “So I called Stratasys,” McLean said, “and while it took a bit of convincing because it was still early stages,” the team partnered on Beta testing of the 3D printing company’s first colour 3D printer, the Objet Connex3. “That was a really powerful alliance that suddenly allowed us to break into this colour plastic printing world. We had a hunch this Connex3 was just the beginning of their road map. And we were right.” One of the things LAIKA was most excited about with “Kubo and the Two Strings,” “is that we embarked on something truly unique. For the first time, we were taking hardware from a company and co-developing software. And customizing the software for our needs. Working with Jon Hiller, an independent software developer, and Stratasys we were able to unlock the Connex3 hidden Voxel Print capabilities,” said McLean. “By doing so we were able to create sophisticated and unparalleled colour plastic 3D printed faces for Monkey, Beetle and Moon Beast.”

Moon Beast from “Kubo and the Two Strings,” the first fully 3D printed stop-motion puppet

The next step in LAIKA’s 3D printing partnership with Stratasys came when LAIKA was invited to be a Beta customer on the Stratasys J750, the first full-colour, multi-material 3D printer. Due to LAIKA’s long history with Stratasys they created a unique partnership with Fraunhofer, the creators of Cuttlefish software, allowing LAIKA early access to Voxel Print on the Stratasys J750. The groundbreaking 3D printer has 360,000 different colour combinations; with Voxel Print, that capability grows exponentially and is combined with the ability to compose new textures and gradients, enabling 3D printing with extraordinary precision. “This is what we’re using on ‘Film Five,’” said McLean.

“Basically we have a work flow now that allows us to have an animator sit down, animate a unique line of dialogue, specifically for that one-shot in the movie and we’re able to print that out, process it and deliver it to set.”

The result of LAIKA’s desire to create unprecedented stop-motion animated performances has led them to continue to push the limits of the 3D printing technology they use. “Coraline” had roughly 20,000 faces, “ParaNorman” had 40,000, “The Boxtrolls” had 56,000, “Kubo” had 64,000, and “we’re well on the way to producing between 85-90,000 faces for our next movie,” said McLean. “The only reason we do what we do is for the performance,” said McLean. “It all goes into that idea of us being able to tell stories that have never been able to be told in stop-motion animation.”

According to McLean, “Being able to have a 3D printer like the Stratasys J750 that’s repeatable and accurate with this full range of colour and materials has afforded us the idea of being able to achieve this shot-by-shot customized animation.” LAIKA’s relationship with Stratasys over the past ten years or so “has been reinforced in film after film. There’s this level of trust that allows us to continue to push each other in really positive ways and I’m excited to continue to forge this relationship on our next movie and in movies to come,” said McLean.

3D Printing Meets Stop-Motion Animation

TriMech Blog, 3D Printing, PolyJet Technology, Stratasys

By TriMech on April 12, 2019

Today marks the release of the fifth movie from LAIKA studios “Missing Link. ” This movie studio is known for their use of stop-motion animation in major feature films, but most don’t know that they use PolyJet 3D printing technology in their production process.

“It’s really kind of an insane process that we’re doing, where we’re taking 3D printing and we’re fusing it with this really old technique of stop-motion and replacement animation and forcing these two technologies and techniques together to come up with some amazing performances and amazing results,” said Brian McLean, Director of Rapid Prototype at LAIKA.

>> Read our blog about printing with PolyJet technology

Merriam-Webster defines stop-motion animation simply as “a filming technique in which successive positions of objects (such as models) are photographed to produce the appearance of movement.” Like traditional animation, it is a painstaking frame-by-frame process, but unlike regular animation, you need actual physical models.

With 24 frames per second of film, that’s a lot of models and model parts.

LAIKA uses 3D printers, specifically the Stratasys J750, to create facial animations for the models they use. Each successive shot or frame of film needs to be consistent with the one before it or the illusion of continuous motion doesn’t work. In traditional animation that means drawings, but in stop-motion that means the model or models you’re photographing, so the need for reliable and repeatable model parts becomes increasingly important. Especially on the scale used in a feature film.

• Film 1 “Coraline” = Approx. 20,000 faces
• Film 2 “ParaNorman” = Approx. 40,000 faces
• Film 3 “The Boxtrolls” = Approx. 56,000 faces
• Film 4 “Kubo and the Two Strings” = Approx. 64,000 faces
• Film 5 “Missing Link” = Approx. 90,000 faces

For this latest film, LAIKA established such an efficient workflow with their set of J750 printers, that they were able to effectively print/fabricate the needed components for one shot of the movie, from storyboard to model, in just a few days.

>> Read the full LAIKA case study with additional comments from Brian McLean

A “pixel” is the smallest element of a digital image. By combining multiple pixels, you can create different colors, textures and patterns. A “voxel” (or volumetric pixel) can be imagined as an extruded pixel. Similar to a pixel they can be combined to have different colors, however because they are tangible objects they can also be combined to create different material properties, like rigidity and transparency. Controlling voxels during the 3D printing process can result in a massive range of color and composite material options in the final output.    

Due to LAIKA’s long history with Stratasys, they were allowed early access to Voxel Print on the Stratasys J750 and used the technology extensively when creating the models and components for “Missing Link”.

>> See TriMech’s Interview with Stratasys at SOLIDWORKS World 2019

The result of LAIKA’s desire to create unprecedented stop-motion animated performances has led them to continuously push the limits of the 3D printing technology they use. “The only reason we do what we do is for the performance,” said McLean. “It all goes into that idea of us being able to tell stories that have never been able to be told in stop-motion animation.”

**Update: The Missing Link won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Film in 2019!

Why mass 3D printing is still not a trend

Photo: asharkyu / Shutterstock, Chris McGrath / Getty Images

The production of goods with individual characteristics is one of the trends in the consumer market. However, personification has not yet become a popular phenomenon. Is this idea promising for business development?

When the problem of shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors became acute, the owners of 3D printers united in the volunteer movement #3Dfor doctors. They began to print adapters, which made it possible to connect diving masks with virus-bacterial filters. Manufacturers were able to quickly develop and release adapters in various configurations for popular types of masks found in stores, quickly covered burning needs and saved many lives - and then began to make full-fledged protective masks and shields.

Adapters for masks - example of a customized product (made to order. - RBC Trends ), that is, adapted to different types of masks. How quickly manufacturers were able to design and release a new product with unique characteristics demonstrates the main advantages of 3D printing.

3D printing allows you to create products based on the preferences or personal characteristics of the buyer - personalized goods. This idea arose in the early 2000s, but so far, contrary to forecasts and the rapid development of additive technologies, has not become a mass phenomenon.

Personalization Challenges

Nike and Adidas have been experimenting with 3D printing for sneakers since 2012. The goal is to create sports shoes in the presence of the buyer according to the individual characteristics of his foot. For example, Adidas announced in 2015 that a consumer could walk into a store, spend a couple of minutes on the treadmill, and immediately receive a printed pair of running shoes that take into account the contours of the foot and pressure points while running. At the same time, Nike announced the possibility of printing shoes directly at the customer's home. To do this, you just need to download the file with the parameters of the sneakers and the characteristics of the foot from the corporation's website to your home 3D printer.

However, by 2020 these opportunities remained unrealized. In practice, everything turned out to be more difficult.

The point is the high cost of such products: the consumer is not ready to pay for customized sneakers many times more expensive when you can choose the right model from thousands of more affordable options.

Customization does not take root among automakers either. For example, in 2017, BMW launched the MINI Yours Customized service, which allows you to customize a new or previously purchased MINI car using decorative elements printed on a 3D printer. For example, it was possible to order individual side body inserts, trim parts, LED door sills and LED door projectors. However, the service is currently unavailable.

Where personification has taken root

So far, 3D printing is most actively used in medicine, where it is vital to take into account the individual characteristics of a person. First of all, the technology is useful in orthopedics and dentistry for the manufacture of prostheses and implants. Customization is especially in demand in the production of prosthetic limbs. With the help of 3D scanning, the parameters of the patient are determined, a digital model of the prosthesis is created, which is printed on a 3D printer. In this case, you can create a unique design of the artificial limb. For example, they produce children's prostheses stylized as favorite movie characters.

Another area where 3D printing is being used to customize products is in the jewelry and fashion jewelry industry. There are enterprises that produce mass products using 3D printing, for example, the American brands LACE, Nervous System and others. Customization is carried out, first of all, by small studios and workshops offering exclusive jewelry. They print digital models created according to customer sketches or cast them from precious materials using 3D printed molds.

Economics of innovation Living hand: who creates bionic prostheses in Russia

As for the majority of goods, the price works here in 99% of cases. Especially when the share of online sales is growing. You type in Google "buy a fountain pen is the cheapest" - and no matter where you are, you buy this fountain pen cheaper. This is where mass production wins.

You can think of many products that could be customized. But you need to be clear about who you will sell them to. Are there enough people willing to overpay for customization to keep your business alive? “In your calculations, you need to take into account real consumer demand, and not the desire to make money on hype,” says Vlasov. “The conclusion is simple: personalized production is possible when it will give approximately the same price as mass production.”

Denis Alekseev, Head of R&D and Production at JSC ROBBO (educational robotics, Skolkovo resident), is confident that personalized production will become a popular trend of the future. But in order to attract the mass consumer to this segment, it is necessary to overcome a number of technical and organizational issues. For the end user, the process of ordering a customized product should be as simple as possible: with a few steps, order what he wants, while receiving the finished product quickly and conveniently. The cost of individual products may be higher, but this increase must be of value to the customer.

Main disadvantages of 3D printing:

• low production speed;

• often low quality products;

• high cost of the product when trying to mass production.

How to reduce the cost of a customized product?

The cost of the finished product primarily depends on the materials for 3D printing. One way to cut costs is to produce consumables yourself.

Another option to reduce the cost of consumables is possible with the development of additive technologies and the development of new printing materials.

The main question is: who will buy it?

Entrepreneurs will be able to develop the production of personalized goods if they find the answer to the question: who will buy them? Businesses that already operate in a particular market and feel the needs of their audience can feel the demand. It is almost impossible to guess - you need to be sure of the demand.

Artur Gerasimov notes that small-scale production is promising for business development using additive technologies. One of the areas of work of his company Innovax is the production of parts and mechanisms by order of industrial enterprises from the automotive industry, instrument making, and the aerospace industry.

A customization boom will occur when a customer can get a personalized product at the same price and as quickly as a mass product. Therefore, it is up to the development of technologies and services.

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