Macworld | iWorld goes on down to South Park, has itself a time

Macworld | iWorld--the annual Mac conference--has taken on more than a new name this year, as it shifts its focus to the culture that Apple's products have helped foster. Perhaps it's fitting, then, that some of the creative team behind South Park headlined the talks at Moscone Center West on Thursday.

If you're wondering what the connection to Apple is, consider this: every episode of the long-running animated series is created almost entirely on Macs.

In a discussion moderated by Chicago Sun Times columnist (and Macworld senior contributor) Andy Ihnatko, three representatives from South Park's animation studio--Eric Stough, David Lenna, and Ryan Quincy--talked about the unique animation processes that go into making one of the most iconic, controversial, and hilarious shows on television.

Maya maniacs

South Park started out as a series of comedic construction-paper-stop-motion-animation projects by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Eric Stough, animation director and producer at South Park Studios, explains that the original pilot for the show took three months to do. Stough has been part of South Park Studios since the beginning, having grown up with Trey Parker; when Parker was 13 and Stough was 11, Parker dubbed him "Butters"--a name Stough shares with a series regular.

Despite the show's iconic paper-cutout appearance, South Park's animators have been using computer animation techniques for years. "We use advanced modeling [software] to make it look 2-D," explained David Lenna, South Park's chief technology officer. The biggest tool in the animation team's box? Autodesk Maya. Ryan Quincy, animation director and producer of South Park Studios, admitted that "We we're using [Apple's] Motion for a while. But we try to keep it in Maya." Now, every episode is produced primarily using Maya, 50 Mac workstations, and 40 Xserves. "Even Windows-based software is done through VM software on a Mac," Lenna said.

Stough credited Maya's flexibility as one reason the show has been able to do some of its bigger, more memorable episodes: "We can do flames and sparks and cars. We can do different styles of animation." Though South Park is most known for a specific type of animation, show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone collaborate with the animation team to venture into new territory to accomplish the parodies and satires demanded by the show.

To illustrate that point, Slough introduced a series of clips for the assembled audience that highlighted the many different styles the South Park staff was able to create using Maya. The satirical World of Warcraft episode is perhaps the most famous example of South Park Studios' pushing its brand into new artistic territory. Like other episodes, it was produced primarily through Maya. World of Warcraft developer Blizzard worked with South Park Studios to produce the machinima scenes using in-game footage, and the characters were re-created in Maya.