Hey everyone,

I'm currently working at Animal Logic here in Sydney, recently started a few months back. Animal Logic did do some work for Happy Feet 2 but was restricted to some environment work for the opening sequence. No animation or creature work was done for Happy Feet 2. Animal Logic did do the original Happy Feet though.

Dr. D studios is located here in Sydney as well. Many folks have been finishing up on Happy Feet 2 and moving on to new adventures. Some coming over to Animal others going back to their respective countries. One thing that has been discussed on the 3d Pro list is that while many people are now done with their jobs at Dr. D, it should be noted that many if not all of those people now not working at Dr. D had short term contracts or longer contracts, but on a project bases. From my understanding, most if not all of the people who "got laid off" knew that their contracts were expiring. It wasn't something that came out of the blue.

Also, Dr. D from what I've heard from various people is a Maya and Houdini studio. No Softimage.

Animal Logic is a mixed pipeline. Maya is used for layout, while rigging and animation is done in Softimage, I believe that rendering is done using RenderMan via Maya. It's a bit more complicated than that as well since there are many in house tools for various aspects of the pipeline as well.

Hope that helps clear the air of some of these misinformed (I dare to say non-researched) articles.

That's good to hear it wasn't a surprise for most working there. If it's just the end of the job that's quite different.

Congrats on Happy Feet 1 by the way. One of the best looking animated features ever!

I think I'll still go see 2. Even though some didn't like it doesn't mean I won't. Curious to see 3Delight in action on a major project anyway

Just to make it clear, I've only been at Animal Logic a few months. Not responsible for anything Happy Feet related.

Oh dear, I started a whole thread and got almost all the facts wrong.

I felt quite sorry for all the people in the industry over there and thought I should say so. I'm glad to hear it's not as bad as I first thought.

I'll shut up now.

I think what EricTRocks meant was more of a criticism of the original article you mentioned than of the original poster...

Yeah I was definitely speaking about the original article. I find that journalism these days puts little to no research into the articles run and the facts are always inaccurate. It's definitely a topic that should be discussed, being that it seems more and more likely that having a staff position at a film studio is not going to be common any more.

Wasn't digging at anyone, just criticizing the original article.

Sorry guys, yes I know you meant the article not me.

I need an emoticon for an awkward situation that isn't as bad as everyone first thought.

Err.... i'll try... this one!

Maybe this one? -

I went to see the movie tonight and I can see why it didn't do well. The story was almost completely nonsensical. I'm sure 3/4's of the kids in there didn't know what they were going on about half the time. The music had nothing to do with the show but seemed to be an attempted sales tool for the music industry (way too common these days). The music was downright wretched in some places, especially the opening and there was WAY to much of it.

The rendering was good but certainly no better than the first and definitely not as good in many instances. Animators totally ignored the laws of physics for much of the swimming/underwater sequences (also far too common) which ruined that for me.

The scenery and environment were quite spectacular in most cases so the environment artists really did their job to perfection. Unfortunately it was often ruined by very long quickly rotating panoramic shots that seemed intent on making everyone sick. It's fine once in a while but not every other shot! Especially at 24 fps! Yikes.

If it wasn't for the terrible writing, obvious attempts to sell music and the bad directing this could have been quite good.

Well, there's my 2 bit review. My kids reactions was one of annoyance...and asked to leave early so that's not a good sign