Star Wars Episode I Technical Animation Challenges   Chair: Zsolt Krajcsik , Disney Feature Animation   Technical Animation Issues for the Battle Droids of Star Wars: Episode I "The Phantom Menace"   Two distinct factors were evident in the decision to use motion-capture technology in the early preproduction phase for the Battle Droids: the Battle Droids are, by design, very humanoid in nature, so they required a hyper-realistic range of motions, and they appear in large numbers, which made the duplication of basic actions and motions a necessity for completing a shot.   James Tooley Jim Hourihan Industrial Light & Magic PO Box 2459 San Rafael, California 94912 USA beth@lucasdigital.com   Cloth Animation for Star Wars: Episode I "The Phantom Menace"   There were two key challenges in designing the procedural animation software for the clothing in "Episode I:" development of appropriate representations for the physical properties of the large range of materials that were needed for the film, and development of a set of controls to define the performance aspects of the clothing.   Tim McLaughlin John Anderson Industrial Light & Magic PO Box 2459 San Rafael, California 94912 USA beth@lucasdigital.com   Multiple Creature Choreography on Star Wars: Episode I "The Phantom Menace"   Working in Softimage, a group of character animators created a series of animation cycles needed for the Naboo ground battle while a group of technical directors created and rendered particle choreographies in Alias|Wavefront's Maya. Both groups cooperated to achieve the best results.   Marjolaine Tremblay Hiromi Ono Industrial Light & Magic PO Box 2459 San Rafael, California 94912 USA beth@lucasdigital.com