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30 cgw j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 1 3D with a Twist In fact, how Lucky's and Spirit's hair moved required a good deal of develop- ment, in addition to the simulation. "It was incredibly challenging, but we learned a lot. And, it looks really beautiful," Dodd opines. The artists approached the hair as they would simulating realistic hair in visual effects, then worked with DreamWorks to dial the sim back to an aesthetic that fit with the painterly environments. To help with the process, the group created a number of setups that enabled the artists to drag and drop the starting positions of the hair, in- cluding pre-design settings for the following movement. This allowed the artist to sim a solid first version in most situations. "To get to these pre-designed settings, we generated different wedges for different movements; each wedge had slightly dif- ferent settings for weight, stiffness, bounce, and so on," Dodd explains. "We worked closely with DreamWorks Animation to find the right combination of settings for differ- ent movements or actions. This became the basis for how the hair would move through the whole movie." Another aspect artists paid particular attention to was the horse rigging and the play of the muscle on these animals. "The rig complexity on this movie was way ahead of what we've done for our animation series work in the past," Dodd adds. We had over 10 different layers of body deformation and 40 different layers of facial deformation built into all the hero rigs. Each rig then had four levels of detail and functionality, allowing for real-time playback at 25 fps," says Dodd. In fact, Jellyfish collaborated with Span- ish-based VFX house Minimo, which created rigs across the whole show. In Dodd's opinion, the Spirit rig was the most complicated due to the mane and tail complexity plus the muscle sim facility — the weight and movement of such a magnificent animal was so important to the film and critical for Jellyfish to get right. The artists approached the muscle simulation in a similar way to how they found the movement of the hair. A system was built that mimicked real muscle movement across the whole horse, then they reduced or restricted any areas of movement they felt did not stay faithful to the artistic style of the picture. "I know the animation speaks for itself, and I am truly proud of what our team created," he adds. In terms of the 2D, the group largely used Mari and Adobe Substance Painter and Pho- toshop for creating all the texturing and shad- er work. They also used Marvellous Designer to create and build all the vintage clothing. "Our artists handcraed all the textures, sometimes scanning in our artists' physical watercolor artwork to use as reference or even a starting point for a texture," Dodd points out. No photographic details were used for the textures; they are all hand-painted and hand- drawn. "This attention to detail, we hope, really helps the viewer feel the artist's hand touching every element." Looking back, Dodd is especially happy with the results of Jellyfish's first feature. "I really think it has a unique aesthetic, and it all fits together really nicely," he says. "We were really conscious of making sure the back- grounds and the environment all sat nicely and played well with the characters, and that was hugely important in making every sequence consistent and having a beautiful aesthetic run through the whole movie." Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. A lot of time was spent developing the hair and fur for the humans and horses. 3D with a Twist