Kelsey Hurley

The animation industry is growing every year. In the 1940’s 2D animation reigned supreme, and movies were made by piecing multiple cel drawings together. However, as technology advanced, artists no longer had to draw each frame by hand. With the entrance of computers, 3D animation and video games became extremely popular. While animation is becoming more technologically advanced, it is also becoming more expensive. For this reason, the animation industry is always looking for multiple ways to save time and money with regards to the animation pipeline. Enter the Digital Weaver, an interactive tool that will speed up and enhance the clothing modeling and simulation process. The Digital Weaver is a program fully integrated into Autodesk Maya and is used to create 3D clothing from a hand drawn 2D image. This process will be fast, easy, and very effective and is what animation industry is looking for.

The Digital Weaver will be run using a graphical user interface (GUI) within Autodesk Maya. When the user loads The Digital Weaver the GUI will show a canvas with the silhouette of a human male or female that the user may draw on using a Wacom tablet. When the drawing is complete the user will be able to decide what clothing to simulate by selecting one of many options such as cotton, spandex, silk, wool and other popular clothing materials. The program will analyze these properties and give the user a 3D, interactive simulation showing the results of the clothing selected. The Digital Weaver will help artists create clothing quickly and give them more time to focus on other parts in the animation pipeline.

Bio:
Kelsey Hurley graduated with her B.S in Computer Science with a concentration in Digital Media and a minor in Fine Arts. While at GW, Kelsey was part of Alpha Omega Epsilon, Tau Beta Pi, Club Fencing, and the Swim Team. Currently she is Technical Director at Walt Disney Animation Studios.