Digital Duct Tape

Friday, February 2, 2018

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Animation Test #2

This piece is from 2006 or 2007 when Phil Lord and Chris Miller were on board to direct.

It was the most ambitious project we had attempted. Flint and Sam were in active design revisions, the design of the world only existed in Justin Thompson's head and two new directors were retooling the project. This test green-lit the film and led to further development where we created the look that you see in the feature film.

For the feature, the design of Flint and Sam changed, the look was refined and the animation improved. All of these things are expected in development. Production has hundreds of very talented artists and a long process ahead to create the highest quality possible. Early development leans toward speed and low cost at the expense of quality. Quality is improved over time. The largest jump, both in cost and quality, is when production begins.

What's surprising to a lot of people is that 3d visual development does not make the assets for the film, nor should it be required to do so. If we get a design approval, then production only has to make the asset once. There's huge cost savings in having a large team with a very specific, unchanging goal. It's best to think of what we do as a concept or prototype similar to how an auto manufacturer creates a concept car with a team of designers before the production version is made.

There were six 3d artists who worked for about 20 weeks on this test. Takao Noguchi and Omar Smith modeled characters, Ernie Rinard and James Battersby modeled, textured, lit and did fx and Sungwook Su did fx. I supervised, modeled, rigged, textured, animated and lit. Justin Thompson was the production designer.

Surf's Up Animation Test #1

I think we did this in 2004 or 2005. This was the first large scale piece ( we call them sizzle pieces ) that the 3D Visual Development group had assembled.

We try to answer as many questions as possible if we'll be spending lots of time on a test. For this piece, no one had done a crashing ocean wave before, there were lots of rolling swells done at that time, but nothing that had a tube and crashed. We were also experimenting with sports-like cinematography.

The wave rig was a prototype that we handed to Imageworks, who in turn built a rig that suited their needs for the film. With only two of us animating on a handful of shots, we can make a very specific rig rather than having to make something very robust for scores of animators working on hundreds of shots. We're free to try things you'd never dare try to support in production.

It was suggested to us that we simulate the waves. As in: make a giant body of water, make a sloping ocean bottom, put 1000 fans and blow them over the surface thereby creating waves. We knew immediately that would be the most expensive, time consuming and inflexible method possible, so we set out to rig the wave as if it was just another character.

Since all of us have a production background we could put ourselves in the future animator's shoes. "I bet the director will ask to change the shape on the top of the wave." -or- "It would be great if we could see the wake and trail as we animated." -or- "The animator and director should see texture flowing over the wave to get a sense of how fast or slow the wave is moving." We could cobble together a lot of ideas very late in the process, sometimes days before delivery.

The directors brought the test and their outline to the executives. They showed the test first and the execs green-lit the film in that meeting.

There were five artists working for about 16 weeks ( including the wave rig prototype ) for the entire piece. Takao Noguchi modeled and textured Cody, Shawn McInerney animated and helped with the wave prototype, Ernie Rinard and James Battersby textured and lit the waves. I supervised, rigged Cody, made the wave rig and animated. The boards were done by Richie Chavez and Marcelo Vignali.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Animation Test #1

An early development piece done around 2004 or 2005. This was before Phil Lord and Chris Miller were on board as directors, so that's why Steve ( at this time his name was Bonkers ) looks so different.

This was the second or third large piece we tackled as a group. Even though both the directors and design ultimately changed, we still view this as a success. It's important to keep in mind that development is an evolution. We put together lots of sketches, some 3d models and a fully animated test. Then we stand back to see what's working and what needs to be improved. Sometimes that means starting over.

From a cost standpoint, it's better to retool an idea as early as possible with a small crew than to go into production with a very large crew and then decide to scrap everything. Failing early saves time and effort in the long run.

There were six artists working for about 12 weeks in total ( model to final render ) for the entire piece. Takao Noguchi modeled Bonkers and the Taco Truck, Shawn McInerney animated, Sungwook Su did the fx, Ernie Rinard did the spaghetti tornado and James Batersby modeled, textured and lit. I supervised, animated, modeled, textured and lit. I forget if Shawn rigged Bonkers or if I did.

**Side note* The dancing Drac at the end was done by Chad Stewart and myself. Along with development, we do fun little animated pieces for marketing. Chad animated and I did the rest.