"It's okay, I have a permit."

This week, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order endorsing the right of United States citizens "to engage in commercial exploration, recovery and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law.  Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons."

Now, from the perspective of global politics and outer space, this isn't a great moment.  There's a existing international agreement from 1979, the Moon Agreement, that stipulates that non-scientific use of extra-terrestrial resources be controlled by international oversight, but the United States has never been a signator - in fact, in 2015 Congress passed a law that basically said that any US citizen involved in the commercial recovery of "space resources" is entitled to them.

The new Executive Order specifically states that "...the United States does not consider the Moon Agreement to be an effective or necessary instrument to guide nation states regarding the promotion of commercial participation in the long-term exploration, scientific discovery and use of the Moon, Mars or other celestial bodies."

The key word there is "commercial" - the 1967 Outer Space Treaty states that nations cannot claim space or any celestial bodies, but the United States is saying that corporate exploitation by US citizens is completely permitted, rather like drilling for oil in international waters, and that they can keep whatever they find.  The new order does say that this should be consistent with applicable law, but then immediately announces that the existing agreements aren't applicable.

In other words, to quote Ron Swanson's permit from Parks & Recreation,  "I can do what I want."

From the perspective of a science fiction fan, this is a fascinating development, given that one of the common tropes of near-future science fiction is the exploitation of mineral resources as the driving force for expansion into the further reaches of our solar system - and eventually, other planetary systems.  This kind of development provides a logical purpose for space exploration, combined with an obvious return on investment.

However, the potential for disaster is epic, which is why there need to be controls in place.  As with undersea oil drilling , if something goes wrong, it's unlikely that its effects will be restricted to the area where the accident took place.  True, there's no equivalent to aquatic life that can be harmed, but the real analogy is that eventually the oil reaches a coastline - and in this case, we're talking about the entire planet, rather than a few miles of beach.

We're decades away from any kind of practical industrial exploitation of space, but if something goes wrong that results in asteroid mining debris or radioactive waste hitting Earth, it's going to take a lot more than a few drums of Dawn dish detergent to deal with the consequences.

- Sid

“There is good in him. I've felt it.”

 

Although I've never been a serious autograph hunter, over the years my modest science fiction collection has come to include a few personalized items:  my recent William Gibson autograph for Agency, the autographed copy of The Difference Machine that my friend Norah gave me as a birthday gift a few years back, and my mirror reversed Ursula K. Le Guin signature.*  Now, thanks to Karli's sister Lisa, I have an autographed set of the Epic Yarns Star Wars adaptations created by Holman Wang and his brother Jack- well, I should say we rather than I, given that both our names appear.

After meeting Holman Wang at an event in January (and buying us the first book in the Epic Yarns series as a gift), Lisa invited him to be a keynote speaker at one of the learning conferences that she produces for teachers in British Columbia, and asked us if we would like to have him autograph his books for us.

We somewhat cautiously agreed - we're fairly typical Canadians, which makes us reluctant to bother people - and Karli handed over the books the next time she saw her sister.

Mr. Wang was happy to provide his signature on all three copies, and although the return of the autographed books was delayed by the current social distancing environment, they're now back in our possession.  Our sincere thanks to both Lisa and Holman!

- Sid

* I also have a set of autographed comics that were written and drawn by my friend Wendy's partner Steven, but that somehow doesn't seem the same. I certainly value those comics, but given that I see Steve on a somewhat regular basis, it's not the same challenge, I could probably get him to sign something every time - although that might get a bit strange after a while.

Pandemic: The Game.

 

The situation is grim, and it looks like the end.  There's been a spike in the spread of infection which seems to have overwhelmed all of the available resources.  No combination of science, medicine, contingency planning or research seems to be able to hold the epidemic in check, and the clock is running out on finding a cure.

Not to worry - it's not the current global state of affairs, but rather the award-winning board game version of it:  Pandemic, created by board game designer Matt Leacock and released in 2008 by Z-Man Games, and followed by several expansion packs and upgrades since then.  (There's a computer version as well, but as the ongoing popularity of board games has shown, there's a kind of social appeal to sitting around a table with people - albeit not at this exact moment in time.)

It's an interesting game to play - my friend Chris introduced me to it over dinner and drinks at the Storm Crow in October of last year, which in retrospect feels a bit prescient.*

Pandemic is played co-operatively - as with our current global situation, it's you and your friends versus a viral enemy, except in the case of the game, there are four colour-coded infectious challenges threatening the planet.

Each player chooses a character role from seven options, each of which has a different set of abilities to contribute to the fight - Scientists need a lower number of cards to Discover a Cure, Medics can eliminate a full stack of virus cubes when Treating Disease, and so on.  The players combine these abilities with City and Event cards from the Player Deck to share knowledge, travel the world, create research stations, stamp out the centers of infection and to seek a cure for each disease.

However, as Epidemic cards are turned over from the Infection deck and the Infection Rate counter goes up, the spread of disease worsens, and as soon as the entire Player deck is used up, it's literally and figuratively Game Over. Players can also lose by using up all of the Disease cubes for a specific colour, or if more than seven Outbreaks take place.

Pandemic has an obvious applicability to our current situation, but if I were Mr. Leacock, I might well make some minor changes to the game's structure - I don't remember using Lockdowns as a control method, and it would be an unexpected wild card to have the United States withdraw funding at the global level.

Oh, and the good news?  Chris and I cured all four viruses and stopped the pandemic on the very last turn.   Let's hope we don't take it that close to the final round in the real world response - after all, we don’t get to play again if we lose.

- Sid

* I had intended to do a blog posting at the time, but somehow I didn't manage to get to it, which seems even more like it was being saved until now.

What not to read right now.*

And don't watch Outbreak, either.  Or 28 Days Later.

- Sid

* In the spirit of previous reading advice.

P.S.  A couple of quick comments.  First, World War Z may seem like a strange choice because it's about zombies, but think about it: would Donald Trump have taken more immediate action if the first person diagnosed with the coronavirus in the United States had started biting people?  Second, busted - I have not read Journals of the Plague Years, and only parts of The Last Man.

A Dance With Dragons.

The last time I attended a Langara-sponsored digital FX seminar, I was in the middle of a crowded lecture hall at the Vancouver Film School.

Thanks to the coronavirus, these are different times - I'm currently sitting in my spare bedroom in my bare feet with a cup of tea at hand, waiting for a Zoom webinar on Game of Thrones digital dragon effects to begin.

Although most of the 155 attendees are from North America (based on a quick pre-event survey) guests are attending from around the world.  A second poll reveals that we're fairly evenly split betwen VFX pros, students, would-be students, and Game of Thrones fans - sadly, there was no option for genre fans, so I put myself in with the GOT crowd.

We're running a bit late, but we start at five minutes after the hour.  Resolution is average, but there's a lot of that going around right now, even YouTube™ has been limiting bandwidth to deal with the increased stay-at-home demand.

 

The hosts for the evening* are Tyler Weiss, Visual Effects producer and currently Vice President in charge of Strategic Initiatives at the Langara Centre for Entertainment Arts, and Visual Effects Supervisor Thomas Schelesny, both of whom worked on Seasons 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones for Image Engine Design, a digital effects company that specializes in animal and creature animation. Ironically, the two first met after Weiss lost an Emmy award for special effects to Schelesny's work on Season Four of Game of Thrones.

Their presentation begins with a very fundamental question regarding the extensive and complicated Season 8 animation work:  how did they get this job done, given the combination of high standards and tight deadlines involved?

Both presenters emphasize the cooperative aspect of the production process behind their success, with a team of 120 people working on Game of Thrones FX.  Image Engine worked primarily on the dragons for the last two seasons of the show, producing 99% of the dragon animation work.

 

The key to the process was efficiency, given that the final season of the program required that the same crew produce three times as many effects, leading the the fundamental question of "What do we spend time doing that doesn't result in dragons on screen?"  This resulted in several basic procedural changes in order to optimize the production process.

As with the previous session on Thanos from the Avengers movies, the two presenters don't go into the technical details of the production process, but they provide some fascinating insights into the creation of believable fantasy animation.

As an example, the primary references for dragon flight came from passenger jets, given their roughly equivalents sizes - Drogon, the largest of the three dragons, is approximately the size of a 747.

As Schelesny explains, the audience knows how airplanes move, and using them as references connects to their mental image of large objects in flight,  "Grabbing onto that part of your mind."

Each dragon had a different type of flight model, based on their sizes.  After Viserion's rebirth under the control of the Night King, a different treatment was required to convincingly reflect the slower, more deliberate flight of a magical dead creature.

 

The flight cycle for the dragon wings utilized actual animal references, with the upward flap coming from eagles in flight, and the downward flap from bats, whose hunting flight patterns also provided the reference for dragons picking up objects from the ground.

As part of the process for focusing on "getting dragons on screen", the animation rig that controlled dragon motion was simplified so that it had fewer controls that were better, making it easier for animators to animate the movements, and providing smooth preview playback without rendering the figures.  The dragon "face rig" was rebuilt as well, making it easier to control every small nuance of the dragon's facial expressions.

Standardized flight cycles provided a signature performance for each dragon in terms of speed, how fast their wings flapped and how high and low they went during both flight and hovering, thereby helping the varied group of animators to stay consistent.

 

The presenters then demonstrated how a variety of techniques came together to create a sequence from the first episode of Season 8, where Jon Snow first rides Rhaegal.

The workflow for the sequence began with paintings from the art department that provided the animation department with the visual intent of the scene.  A simple cartoon version was created based on the painting to establish the editorial needs of the sequence, and a basic pre-animation was then done in order to establish the correct speed and motion for each shot in the sequence.

The shots themselves relied upon a combination of live action featuring the actors, and digital versions of the dragons in flight.  The actors were filmed on a motion base - commonly referred to as a "buck plate" - which was programmed to match the dragon flight from the pre-animation. In cases where the buck plate was unable to match the dragon, camera movements completed the effect.

The initial dragon animation was then refined to match the 3D buck plate shots, the two elements were combined, and the effects were completed by lighting the dragon and fine-tuning the movement of individual dragon parts such as the tail.

For many of the sequences, the production team realized that it was easier to use green-screened practical shots instead of animation, such as the movement of Jon Snow's cape during the dragon ride, which created by fans blowing on the buck plate rather than adding another animation element to the scene.

Similarly, all the dragon fire was created using real flames that were then composited with the dragons.  When necessary, multiple flames were combined to created a larger, more solid flame.

 

In some cases, the production team initially struggled to achieve the look that they wanted.  In the case of the wight attack on Drogon and Daenerys in Episode 3 of the final season, the animators initially used actual stunt performers with greenscreen elements and buck plates in the same manner that they'd produced the dragon riding sequence from Episode 1, but the results didn't sync with the dragon movements.

The group needed some kind of simple idea to simplify the wight attack and allow the hundreds of wights to match the dragon movement while holding onto the dragon and each other.

The clever solution was based on a single live action crawl performance by Animation Supervisor Jason Snyman, a performance that was motion tracked to create an animation cycle that was then given to the animators.  This allowed for the creation of hundreds of digital wights that could directly interact with each other and Drogon.

 

Surprisingly, the animators were also able to use the same cycle to make running wights, through the simple technique of "making their feet heavier than their heads".  The resulting combination of effects "created the sense of chaos and interactivity that you see in the final shot."

In addition to dragon and combat animations, the Image Engine team created cloud effects as well.  Once again, they relied on airplane and fighter jet references to establish how objects in flight interact with clouds:  breaking up the cloud formations, creating turbulence, and wingtip contrails and similar vapour effects that helped to create direction, which Schelesny described as "subtle but necessary to sell the effect."   The clouds were initially created as high definition polygon based static elements kilometers in relative length, and then motion was added to each individual cloud, regardless of whether or not a dragon was in contact with the cloud formation.

The evening concluded with an acknowledgement of the partnerships behind the success of the final Game of Throne effects as they appeared on screen.  The final shot compositions were completed by the award-winning WETA Digital Studios, located in New Zealand, where all of the additional elements such as water, people and wights were added to the scenes, and the building renders for the destruction of King's Landing were provided by Scanline VFX.

Overall, it was an extremely interesting event, and I have to give the organizers full credit for adapting to the current situation.  In fact, as with some of the other changes that COVID-19 has caused, I'd fully support this format for future seminars - all other issues aside, it's certainly nice to have a comfortable seat and lots of elbow room.

 - Sid

* It's a bit ironic that two people who do award-winning movie-quality special effects are relying on the standard Zoom background feature. It's like being invited to have lunch at McDonald's with Gordon Ramsay.

"Remember — you’ll get through this."

And now, some medical advice - well, advice from a Doctor, anyway:

Incoming message... #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/lTXziuzWVQ

— Doctor Who on BBC America (@DoctorWho_BBCA) March 25, 2020

And don't forget, be kind, even kinder than you were yesterday - and look out for each other. Because in the end, we're all family.

- Sid