Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1120864
F E AT U R E ALLEN FOSTER HEAD OF EFFECTS Returning back to Warner Bros. Feature Animation after supervising 2D effects on Space Jam, Foster set up a digital special effects unit at a time when animation was just starting to encompass more digital techniques and CGI. One of the producers for Space Jam moved over to work on The Iron Giant and recommended him to Brad Bird. " We met and got along great and from there on, I was his Head of Effects," says Foster. We were all part of a small, tight crew working on this film. As a production unit, we felt isolated from the main Warner lot and determined to prove we were the little engine that could. There was an amazing camaraderie. It was very clear that we were going to be early starters in incorporating digital techniques and CGI into animated feature films. The Iron Giant was being designed in a traditional 2D style set in the 1950's. I'd already set up a digital effects unit at Warner Feature Animation after returning from Space Jam. This new unit was incorporating compositing tools, particle systems, Elastic Reality and all tools we could find for this digital progression forward. These were early days of CGI animation and for The Iron Giant we were going to be using a beta version of Alias/Wavefront in production. I knew early on that there was going to be a heavy and dramatic storm sequence at the beginning of the film. I've supervised most of my career and I usually take on something heavy just so the team knows to trust how I lead. I had experience creating a storm at sea from working on a Shell Oil commercial with Richard Williams Studio in London. This storm sequence needed all the dramatic effects possible as a lead-in to the film. I decided to use CG for the ocean and soon discovered we didn't have all the tools available within the Maya software. I ended up buying a game-related CG software to cover functions I needed for the ocean's surface. After working with the effects team during the day, I would go home and create all the CG ocean animation. I would then render it out and bring it into the studio to integrate into all the other elements. I needed the CG displacement for some of the surface detail and created the surface shaders that would help give me that very stylized 2D rendered ocean look. Initially, I animated the ocean as one complete piece then broke it up into multiple traditional animation layers and rendered in black and white. I didn't want to render in color because I would do all that when I composited the final elements together. I could go in afterwards and add gradients and lighting effects sympathetic to the look of the 2D artwork. We were constantly treading that line between maintaining the 2D style of '50s animation while engineering the CGI into 38 KEYFRAME