Vol. 38, No. 18

3-4-2008
By: Adam King

OSU alum is honored by the Academy for making movies believably wet

When a 14-year-old Doug Roble saw Star Wars in 1977, he was awestruck by what was considered at the time to be the film’s cutting-edge special effects. Walking out of the theater, with X-wings and lightsabers dancing in his head, he knew creating movie magic was what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Thirty-one years later, on Feb. 9, the Ohio State alum was accepting his second award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, this time for developing a fluid simulation system that took digital effects to a new level of realism.

His software tool allowed graphic artists to create surging water effects for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Day After Tomorrow and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

“For a geek like me, this is the ultimate job,” said Roble, who is creative director of software for Digital Domain in California. “You have impressive software engineers, mathematicians and creative people sitting next to fantastic artists, and they can take the tools you create and do fabulous things with them. It’s unique in the world and a great place for an engineer to be.”

While an undergrad at Colorado, Roble had some doubts he would achieve his ultimate goal because he lacked an artistic side. But his dream became more tangible as he was earning his master’s and doctorate of computer science at Ohio State.

“One of the great things about going to a huge school is I was able to take film classes, math and engineering, and I still use it all,” he said. “Everything I do requires a good, solid math foundation, and I got that at Ohio State.”

He also learned from some of the best educators in their fields, including Computer Science and Engineering Professor Rick Parent, who first studied under Charles Csuri, the father of computer animation; Wayne Carlson, former director of Ohio State’s Advanced Computing Center for Art and Design; and Jeff Light in the film department, who now works for George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic.

Roble considers them all influential to his success.

And success came rather quickly. After leaving Ohio State in 1992, Roble was immediately hired by Digital Domain as a software engineer. He expanded on his dissertation work to develop the TRACK system for camera position calculation and scene reconstruction. It essentially helped artists analyze images that were filmed to better determine where to fit graphics into them.

“It gave artists something they weren’t able to do before,” Roble said. “And it attracted the notice of the Academy.”

The Academy gave Roble a Technical Achievement Award (a certificate recognizing an accomplishment that leads to progress in the film industry) for TRACK in 1998.

His February trip to the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards garnered a step up from the certificate. The Scientific and Engineering Award is given to those with “a definite influence on the advancement of the industry,” according to the Academy’s Web site. This award is a plaque with a representation of the Oscar and is just below an Oscar statuette, which is rarely handed out at the SciTech Awards.

“We were just flabbergasted by it,” said Roble. “Any kind of Academy Award looks great on a resume, so the certificate is highly thought of as well.”

The SciTech Awards’ Digital Imaging and Technology Subcommittee, made up of 25 people in the industry, does extensive research before handing out the awards. The subcommittee interviews all the people who used the tool, every person who wrote code or helped develop the tool and all competitors with similar technology to create a lengthy report about the state of that technology in filmmaking.

“To be recognized after all that research and the effort they put into it is all the more gratifying,” Roble said. “That’s the best part of this Academy Award, it’s not a popularity contest.”

Six different fluid simulators received awards, in fact, and all winners were notified before the ceremony — far different than Oscar night when winners are announced live. So Roble said the event was more about celebrating achievement, and nobody left empty-handed. Actress Jessica Alba (Fantastic Four, Sin City) presented Roble with his award.

“I think this places him right at the top of his industry peers,” said Parent, who still sees Roble at the annual SIGGRAPH industry conference. “I haven’t searched through the awards to see who else in computer animation has two technical awards from the Academy, but my guess is that if there are others, you could count them on one hand. For students coming through OSU — or other places for that matter — I think seeing Doug receive these awards makes the possibility of success in the industry much more feasible.”

Right now Roble is doing work that could eventually lead to a third award, although the company is keeping the precise details under wraps. Needless to say, it will push the envelope for digital effects yet again.

Nine- to 10-hour days are the norm for Roble, who is flirting with the idea of becoming an academic. He worked his way through Ohio State as a graduate teaching assistant and was assistant faculty his last year.

“I have too much fun doing this,” he said with conviction, “but summers off would rock.”

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