Editing Geri's Game (section)

=== Technology ===
Geri's voice (vocal intonations) came from Pixar writer [[Bob Peterson (filmmaker)|Bob Peterson]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Geri's Game (1997)|url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b811719c9|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160928010733/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b811719c9|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 28, 2016|publisher=British Film Institute|access-date=September 10, 2016}}</ref> Peterson wanted Pixar to be able to create a short that could technologically push the studio to new heights; specifically, he wanted Pixar to create a short film featuring a character that could display both convincing-looking skin and realistic cloth animation.<ref name="20 years" /> The first Pixar short film with a human main character, ''Geri's Game'' was produced with the goal of "[taking] human and [[cloth animation]] to new heights".<ref>[http://www.pixar.com/shorts/gg/behind.html ''Geri's Game'' - Behind the Scenes] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120414121059/http://www.pixar.com/shorts/gg/behind.html |date=2012-04-14 }} at Pixar</ref><ref>Robertson, Barbara. [http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/meet-geri.pdf "Meet Geri: The New Face of Animation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511225647/http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/PDFs/meet-geri.pdf |date=2011-05-11 }}, ''Computer Graphics World'', 1998.</ref><ref>{{citation | first1= T | last1= DeRose | first2= M | last2= Kass | first3= T | last3= Truong | title= Subdivision surfaces in character animation | url= http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/readings/derose98.pdf | work= Proceedings of [[SIGGRAPH]] 1998 | year= 1998 | url-status= dead | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070113014127/http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~decarlo/readings/derose98.pdf | archive-date= 2007-01-13 }}</ref> To achieve the goal of producing a believable 3D human character, two people were brought on to do research for the project: [[Michael Kass]], who did the calculations behind the physics for a dynamic cloth system, and Tony DeRose, who made use of [[subdivision surfaces]], a technique invented by Catmull in conjunction with [[Silicon Graphics]] founder [[James H. Clark|Jim Clark]], which allowed for more lifelike skin surfaces.<ref name="20 years" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Subdivision Surfaces in Character Animation|url=http://graphics.pixar.com/library/Geri/paper.pdf|website=graphics.pixar.com|access-date=14 April 2015}}</ref>

Previously, most 3D character surfaces were crafted using several [[non-uniform rational B-spline]]s (NURBS) that had to be "stitched" together, which made for less expressive movement and caused models to frequently tear. The use of subdivision surfacing, which renders a character's skin as one large surface, allowed for smoother object movement, as well as more intricate detail. DeRose had been working on the technology at the [[University of Washington]], and had already brought subdivision surfaces to [[CAD]] makers, who were ultimately unconvinced, and held their faith in NURBS, before bringing it to Pixar, which was much more receptive.<ref name="New Face" />

On the clothing side, after toiling endlessly by candlelight, Kass managed to create a system which could simulate the movement of cloth, at which point the team realized that the suit jacket they had modeled did not fit with Geri's movement outside of a default [[T-pose]]. According to Pinkava, [[Steve Jobs]], upon a hearing about the issue, had offered to help him by enlisting tailor [[Giorgio Armani]] to help them design an outfit for Geri, which he ultimately declined.<ref name="20 years" /> The development of a dynamic cloth simulator made several changes to the way that animators work; for instance, the animation, when completed, needed to be sent to the simulator, which would automatically insert Geri's jacket and calculate its movements, rather than being directly sourced to the [[3D rendering|renderer]] after being finished. Geri also needed to be animated 30 [[Film frame|frames]] in advance in order to get the simulation going, and animators could not "cheat" by having off-camera body parts go unanimated, as it would affect how the simulating program moved the clothing.<ref name="New Face" />

Like other Pixar shorts, ''Geri's Game'' contains no [[spoken dialogue]], and so is driven only by the actions and [[Facial expression|expressions]] of its main character. To further push the ability to convey the film's story, extra detail was put into Geri's facial [[Rigging (computer graphics)|rigging]] compared to previous rigging methods, with rigger Paul Aichele giving the character hundreds of face controls for animators to use.<ref name="20 years" /> These new, more detailed rigging methods went on to be used in ''[[A Bug's Life]]'', which was being worked on at the same time.<ref name="20 years" />