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ONWARD www.postmagazine.com 17 POST MAR/APR 2020 Making Magic In Onward, effects are also treated as a character. "We wanted the magic to be cool and interesting because it plays such an important role," says Stocker. A film language was created to keep the magic consistent. "That illustrated the idea that [the magic] was a little chaotic, and for people who couldn't master the magic, it would be a little more wild, but the more advanced they became at using it, the more refined the magic would look," Rangaswamy explains. Designing the look of the magic, though, was quite an undertaking. Dave Hale, effects lead, calls it "a long, fun-but-painful journey." The team spent quite some time looking at the magic effects in a wide range of films for inspi- ration. The style couldn't be too young-looking, nor could it be too mature-looking; rather, it fell somewhere in the middle of those extremes, says Hale. Most important, the magic had to fit within the world of Onward — which is more painter- ly in style than, say, Toy Story 4, which is more photography-based. According to Hale, there was a spell matrix based on the intensity of the spell and the ability of the wizard. "In that sense, the story magic was almost thought of as a character, a supporting character, for Ian, as it complemented the performances," he says. As the story progresses and Ian becomes better at wielding the magic and is trying harder spells, the language changes, becoming more orderly than chaotic. First, though, the magic had to be designed (would it pulse or shoot out a beam from the staff, for instance). And, they had to determine how Ian would react. The group looked at accomplishing this in 3D, but old-school 2D illustrations were the best alternative for providing a sense of timing, size and scale that the effects department used for their inspiration. "There's this dance that went on back and forth between [animation and effects] before we got [the final look] right," says Stocker. Using just 2D elements didn't quite fit into the Onward world, and 3D proved a bit too realistic for the painterly style. Rather, a mix between the two proved to be the best choice. While effects designed the physics of the spells — the shape of the magic beams and so forth — lighting then worked with effects on the color and how they would illuminate the scene. The effects were done within SideFX's Houdini and then ren- dered through Foundry's Katana. Dad's staff was just one aspect of the magic. The artists also had to deal with the results of that magic. For instance, there are characters who disappear, and the team had to develop techniques to show how those characters would partially appear and reappear. "We had to figure out ways for them to transition from being fully formed to disappearing, and the timing of that," says Rangaswamy. "The animators would figure out the progression and then work with the effects team to figure out what that transi- tion area would look like." The magic had a glowing element to it that served as a light source for the other objects in the scene. So, as an object disappears, a determination had to be made as to how much of that transition area would glow, what color it would be, and so on. "That's something effects, animation and lighting worked on together," says Rangaswamy. This meant working in tandem, as lighters did their work while the animators did theirs. Meanwhile, effects had to wait for animation in order to finesse their work. "Then the magical effects are driving the lighting, making things more complicated with all the back and forth between the departments," says Best. Volumetric mesh lights were used on the show, whereby the volume representation of the VFX assets, such as the magic beams or sparks, actually served as the light source — something the lighters were unable to do before, Best points out. "We'd have to use a proxy version of the effect, a geometric meshed version or that sort of thing," he notes. "The thing is, we have the ability to do things in a very photorealistic way that's physically correct. But the look of the film is fairly painterly; there's a lot of handcrafted shot changes. And it's challeng- ing for the lighting artists to marry those two, but now it can be done in a much cleaner way." Without hesitation, Hale points to two sequences in which the magic was especially difficult. The first was when the boys conjure up their dad, partly due to the having so many effects working on top of one another. The second involved the dragon. Throughout the film, Ian is learning different types of spells, but at the end, he must use a culmi- nation of all of them to fight the dragon. "There's a unique look for the different spells, and we had to deal with all the different complexities that we dealt with individually up to this point," says Best. "There were super-heavy simulations, like fire, destruction and a dragon of red gas. There was interaction with the environment, the dust and destruction on the ground, and every magic spell possible. It's a Level 3 maxed-out version one right after the other, all playing together. There's every- thing but the kitchen sink." Hale notes that the formation of the gas drag- on and the work on the dragon's wings were very complex, resulting in effects doing some secondary motion on the gas dragon to give it extra weight. "Effects had a big hand in developing and sup- porting that character, which is not very common for us," he says. "We took all the pieces of the drag- on, which is made out of the high school, and made them feel like they had mass. We added lot of scale. We added hanging cables and bits of red rock and stuff falling off the dragon, on top of the gas that was inside the dragon and its wings, and the fire coming out of the dragon. "This is one of our biggest effects films for sure," says Hale. Personal Journey As Stocker notes, Onward is a fantasy story, yet it is a deeply personal one for Scanlon. The film was inspired by the death of Scanlon's father's when the director and his brother were very young, and the siblings' subsequent relationship. Initially, the team was unsure whether it was appropriate to offer notes about the story. "It was his, after all," says Stocker. "But Dan is such a giving director. He invited us to really poke at the story and make it better. He would pitch us a sequence and then we would pick it up to animate and brain- storm, then we would pitch those back to Dan. He would decide if they fit or if they were funny or not. It really invested the animators into the movie to make it better." As Rangaswamy notes, on previous Pixar mov- ies, there was always a certain challenge that the group had to overcome, whether ocean waves and refraction with Finding Nemo, animation controls for a vehicle in the first Cars, vegetation for The Good Dinosaur, or the world of the dead for Coco. On this movie, however, he believes the challenge was in the culmination of things that demanded their attention. "We had all those things in one film. There's an ocean and water, characters that are human-like and ones that are furry. There's complex clothing interaction that required a lot of simulation. There's a lot of magic, and the battle at the end is a big effects extravaganza," he says. "We had to do all these things that are really high level." Most of all, the movie shows that there is a bit of magic in all of us. Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW (www.cgw.com), Post's sister publication. The Barley and Ian characters appear in almost every shot.