Drew Olbrich鈥檚 first job after earning his degree at 麻豆村 in 1992 is with . The company has just made a deal with to make , an animated movie that will use computer graphics to show cartoon ants in three dimensions, rather than the flat two of hand-drawn animation. To do so, graphics experts called 鈥渓ighters鈥� have to work with a program to create the ideal amount of light, shadow, and reflection in every scene. With the tool the lighters have now, they can see a pixelated approximation of what their changes will do in 15 seconds, but to see what it will truly look like, they have to wait 30 minutes, which is unacceptable.
Olbrich and a team of just two others need to create something that shows the real impact of lighting changes in seconds. Nothing remotely as fast exists. No matter, the young programmers devise the technology. 鈥淚鈥檓 still kind of surprised we were able to do it,鈥� says Olbrich.
Antz became a box-office smash. Since then, the animation lighting system聽has been used regularly, including in the animated films , , and , as well as in live-action movies such as聽. The cumulative box-office total is more than a billion dollars.
Olbrich and his colleagues recently won an Academy Award at this year鈥檚 Oscars for their .
鈥擬ichelle Bova (DC鈥�07)
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Shedding Light Behind-the-Scenes
