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44 cgw j a n u a r y . f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 artists constructed more than 600 buildings – a low number compared to some features, but a difficulty for the small crew working on this film. "New York City was one of our main challenges," says Mathieu. "We needed to re-cre- ate a complete and personal version of the city, in sync with Wall's view. The GPU cache of Maya helped a lot in this regard, whereby NYC was divided into several different zones that were loaded into Maya depending on our needs. To help the produc- tion flow, we also had to create matte paintings that were used in some shots to show the buildings in the background. Trevor [Wall] wanted to give the feeling of a very dense city that was really lively, with lots of cars, crowds, and buildings." The modelers at Assem- blage used Pixologic's ZBrush, mainly for the detailing work on the sets in the Arctic. "Lots of the mountains were detailed in ZBrush and rendered with displacements in Maya, giving the environments a more lively and natural look," says Mathieu. "Although this produced heavy scenes with long render times, we wouldn't have been able to achieve the look and feel Wall wanted otherwise." The effects artists had their hands full, too, creating water, snow, ice – "just about every- thing except fire," says Wall. Snow proved a big obstacle, making the Arctic scenes espe- cially complex. These effects, as well as most of the movie's VFX, were achieved in Maya. To add footprints in the snow, the group first employed an automated system that was based on the position of the feet by the characters making the tracks, along with displacement on the surface. It also worked for char- acters sliding on the ground. However, the artists real- ized that the creation of those footprints needed a little more precision on close-up shots. So, the system was improved to get a smoother creation on the surface. Water effects were tricky, too, generated with Maya Fluid as well as Side Effects So- ware's Houdini. According to Mathieu, the water simulations involved a great deal of surface area and detail, oen resulting in sims that took three to five days to compute. Water was a major occur- rence in a giant storm sequence near the end of the movie, with rain, lighting, splashes, wind. It is the sequence in Norm that Wall is most proud of. Vayu Digital in Mumbai created the simula- tions for the storm, working in sync with the animation depart- ment at Assemblage to match the animation of the boat. "When you read a script where the main furry characters are living in the Arctic, going to New York City, and sailing into a storm on a huge barge in front of a tidal wave, you already know that you're going to spend a lot of time in the office," says Mathieu. "What I mean is, given the production constraints and the time, there were many ob- stacles on this ambitious project. But all the studios and everyone – from Splash CEO Nicolas Atlan [who stayed in contact with the production team and regularly visited Mumbai] to each and ev- ery artist – met those challenges head-on." T H A T ' S A W R A P ! Assisting in the production of Norm in LA were two anima- tion veterans from Disney and DreamWorks, who Wall says showed him how other studios approach CG features. "I learned from them the right way to do things on a feature film," he adds. Assemblage's CEO, Max Madhavan, also hired several leads, production managers, and a new COO, Milind Shinde, all coming from DreamWorks, who brought their expertise and experience to the project. According to Wall, the tight schedule was the biggest looming issue for everyone involved. At one point, the film- makers held their breath for an entire week, fearing something devastating had happened to the movie halfway through production following a fire at Assemblage. "We were already on a tight schedule, but they stepped up, worked day and night to fix everything, and in less than three days had everything back on track," Wall says. Wall believes audiences will embrace Norm. "It has a basic but heartwarming story that will be liked by children and adults. It also has entertainment value," he says. "I am proud of the entire film." Wall will be returning to broadcast work, but has since fallen in love with moviemaking, breaking the ice, so to speak, with Norm. In fact, he, along with many of the others who dipped their toes into the frosty waters of animated feature filmmaking with this project, are not that dissimilar from the characters in the film, who determinedly set out on a big adventure into unknown territory for something they believe in. And now we can enjoy the results of that journey in theaters. ■ (TOP) NORM IS A BIPED WHEN ACTING HUMAN-LIKE. (BOTTOM) MAYA FLUID AND HOUDINI WERE USED TO GENERATE THE CG WATER. VIDEO: GO TO EXTRAS IN THE JANUARY.FEBRUARY 2016 ISSUE BOX C G W. C O M Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of Computer Graphics World.