Mainframe animate Barbie video - Post News - Brief Article

Post, Oct, 2002 by Marc Loftus

VANCOUVER, BC -- Mainframe, here, has teamed up with Mattel once again to create a fully-animated, direct-to-video release centering around its popular Barbie character. Barbie As Rapunzel is the second animated video project the studio has produced for Mattel, following the earlier video release, Barbie in the Nutcracker.

For Nutcracker, Mainframe (www.mainframe.ca) produced a motion capture ballet sequence performed by principal dancers of the New York City Ballet. The Rapunzel project includes character voices by Angelica Huston, who plays the evil godmother, and Kelly Sheridan, who returns as the voice of Barbie.

According to Mainframe's motion capture department head Andrea Donnelly and producer/director Jennifer Twiner McCarron, Barbie As Rapunzel was produced over a nine-month period using both motion capture and keyframe animation techniques. The 78-minute video was delivered to Mattel in July and is scheduled for release on October 1st.

Mainframe used Softimage V.3.9 to create the project's animated characters. A team of six focused on character hair and clothing, writing custom shaders for Softimage. Alias/Wavefront Maya was used for special effects.

All of the performances for the 15 human characters were created using Motion Analysis, EVA and Kaydara Filmbox motion capture gear. Motion capture data was also purchased from LocoMotion Studios in Wimberley, TX, for use in animating a CGI horse. In total, 16 days were spent capturing the 1,000 moves used in the project.

Other characters featured in the video -- including a ferret, two dragons and a rabbit -- were animated using keyframe techniques.

While Mainframe uses motion capture techniques to animated the shows Action Man and Max Steel, Donnelly and Twiner McCarron agree that this Barbie project really pushed the envelope, resulting in the studio's finest work to date. Mainframe is currently working on a third Barbie project for Mattel, due out in October 2003.