Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1192296
12 cgw w i n t e r 2 0 1 9 had to work closely with the production designers to establish this look. The crew also needed waves that were big enough to feel like they were a threat to Elsa. For this, effects used mathemati- cal equations to model the motion of the waves, and plugged those into their simula- tion, tweaking various values for amplitude and wavelength, and ran the sim to see the result. The tests showed how the change in ocean topography affected the break of the waves. The goal was to get waves that were several times the size of Elsa. "A simulation wants to be based on reality, and sometimes, especially in our fairy tales, we want to break that reality, and that's when you get into a conflict between the technology and the art, which we had to solve here," says Miller. Once they got the waves at the right size and frequency, the group wrote a separate simulation for the shoreline to limit how far up the beach the water traveled aer it broke, running two different simulations to get the big crashing waves and the ensuring shoreline rush. These were then combined and composited with the procedural ocean surface that extends out to infinity. The water motion, however, remained raging, vio- lent, with lots of foam. Says Ramos, "We were running much big- ger sims on this show. We had to make these huge, breaking waves that are fully simulated." Without question, the challenges present- ed in Frozen 2 gave the effects department some new and interesting problems to solve. For instance, Elsa had to run on top of this water, and she is using her magical pow- ers, creating an ice ramp of sorts – so now there is water and ice, a fluid and solid, built (and fractured) by effects. Animation had to perform Elsa, but the water simulations, including the giant wave, were coming from effects. This required an especially tight loop between animation and effects. However, the effects department typically follows animation in the pipeline. "But because we were essentially sup- plying the ground plane on which Elsa was running on, we had to get ahead of layout even, to provide them with some rough sim- ulations just to get an idea of timing and the speed of the water she would be interacting with," explains Ramos. Alas, the tricky thing with having a simula- tion as the ground plane was that every time a little change was made to the surface, it changed the entire thing. So, effects anima- tors had to work closely with the animation team to make sure Elsa's performance was in sync with the performance of the water, and vice versa: Not only does Elsa react to the water, but the water had to react to her as well. "It's pretty hard to tame simulations. For this, though, we had to get the right size of these waves, the scale, and nailing that was a big challenge here," Ramos points out – as was all the back and forth between effects and animation. To be sure the shot would work correctly among the various departments, effects ran low-res sims and mock-ups of the wave toppling over and breaking, and gave them to layout, so they had an idea of the timing and where to place their cameras. Meanwhile, an- imation provided Elsa's performance, which had to be tracked on the moving wave and matched with the breaking of the wave. Effec It is extremely difficult to separate effects from character animation and even the envi- ronments in this film. Furthermore, Frozen 2 contains diverse types of effects, and lots of them, whereas the first Frozen centered mainly on snow-related effects. "Because this was an effects-heavy show, we were everywhere – environments, lighting, layout, animation," says Ramos. Moreover, while many of the simulations in the film were based on real physics, and the artists strived for believability, they did not want photoreal effects. "Our characters are caricatured, and we wanted the effects caricatured as well," says West. "We were always pushing and pulling the simulations." Yet, it's far more than just physics-based simulations; there is a lot of artistry that went into creating the sims, too. In Ramos' opinion, the most challenging effects were those pertaining to water. "Not only do we have ocean waves and shorelines to deal with, but we also have a water character, Nokk, made completely out of water," she says. "We had to figure out how the character looked above the water and below the water, to make it feel like it's still part of the water." Adding to the complexity, of course, was Elsa inter- acting with the water. "I feel like the theme of this movie, effects-wise, was 'collaboration.' We keep saying that because it's no exaggeration. It took many different teams working together to bring these characters, some of which are abstractions of elements, to life," says Ramos. Effects also handled Elsa's magic, most of which was also generated in Houdini. "She's more controlled with her magic, she's very conscious of what she is doing now," says Ramos. Fay-Tale Ending Four years in the making, Frozen 2 is, ultimately, a mythic fairy tale about home and family, self-discovery, courage, and the power never to give up. In essence, the property has two different stories: the mythic story (Elsa) and the fairy- tale story (Anna). Had the mythic version prevailed in the original Frozen, Elsa would have suffered a tragic fate. But the fairy-tale Anna saved the day. "The power of these two in a tug of war was the biggest discovery for us," says Lee. "And that really came from our research about the difference between a myth and a fairy tale." For fans around the world, thank goodness the fairy tale prevailed, giving us Frozen 2. n Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. ELSA HAS MORE CONTROL OVER HER MAGIC THAN SHE DID IN FROZEN.