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RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET www.postmagazine.com 35 POST NOVEMBER 2018 t's hard to visualize the expansive digital world we call the Internet, a global system of interconnected computer networks that link people, places and all things. But for the CG animated feature film Ralph Breaks the Internet, that is exactly what the artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios had to do. Then, they had to build it and bring this massive "invisible" world to life. Ralph Breaks the Internet is a sequel to the 2012 film Wreck-It Ralph; in that film, the perpetual antagonist Wreck-It Ralph in the video game Fix-It Felix Jr. sheds his villainous reputation by redeem- ing himself among the video game characters, who socialize outside their game roles when Litwak's Family Fun Center and Arcade closes at night. During that quest, he befriends Princess Vanellope von Schweetz, a little girl with a big penchant for high-octane racing in Sugar Rush, a candy-themed kart racing game. Ralph Breaks the Internet picks up six years later in the arcade, as Vanellope finds herself on the verge of losing her game unless a difficult-to-find part for Sugar Rush can be located. Where can a person find such an item? On the Internet, of course. So Ralph and his best friend, Vanellope, travel to this mysterious place via a new- ly installed Wi-Fi router in the arcade to locate the obsolete steering wheel and prevent Sugar Rush from becoming permanently unplugged. Ralph Breaks the Internet is Disney's 57th an- imated feature, directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, who shares writing credit with Pamela Ribon. Moore directed the original Ralph as well as the Oscar-winning Zootopia (2016), with Johnston also serving as a writer on those films. "We wondered if there was more to the story [of Wreck-It Ralph]," says Moore, who, along with the rest of the team, transported the lumbering Ralph (John C. Reilly) and feisty but diminutive Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) from the arcade to the expanse of the Internet. Joining the pair are some characters from the previous film as well as many new ones, including Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), an entrepreneur and head of the media site BuzzzTube, and Shank (Gal Gadot), a tough-as-nails avatar from the online racing game Slaughter Race. Throughout the film, Ralph and Vanellope are put to the test. The same can be said of the entire production team on this film. Where does one even begin when it comes to con- ceptualizing and bringing the Internet to life on the big screen? After all, it is a gigantic, complex world — one that creates awe when Ralph and Vanellope first see it. The artists wanted that same reaction from audiences. Before anything, the team had to understand how the Internet and Websites work, and then translate that concept, from something akin to a board grid to a land with hubs. "We wanted a metropolis feel, but sort of abstract," says Ernie Petti, technical supervisor, who interfaced with all the departments to determine and overcome the technical challenges that would have to be solved for this film. The design team conceptualized the Internet as a cityscape — "the biggest city you've ever seen," says Petti. It is filled with wires and boxes and districts, and teeming with brands (some real, some not) from all over the world. It took four years to develop the film, during which time the actual Internet would change. To keep their vision current, the group focused on main pillars comprising the Internet — shopping, online gaming and so forth. In addition, they would build up the virtual city in multiple layers from the ground up (and out) using building blocks, with newer sites atop older ones, and popular sites given larger real estate. Interconnecting these dense blocks are streets and pathways, along with billboards, sig- nage, videos and more jam-packed throughout. NEW STEPS IN WORLDBUILDING "We've built buildings before, but the scope, scale and density here required us to focus our technol- ogy," says Larry Wu, head of environments. "It's orders-of magnitude-larger and more complex than anything we've done — more buildings, more crowds. We had to figure out more efficient ways of doing it." The Internet is built out of 3D geometry, not paintings, "to give the camera flexibility, and we had light bouncing around between all the objects and reflecting and interacting among all the buildings," says Petti. "And, we needed to populate them with crowds and vehicles. That's a lot easier to do when it's all 3D." To achieve this dense world, a number of steps had to be taken. First, the crew needed an efficient way to construct the 3D buildings. Then, Disney Animation's in-house Hyperion renderer had to be reworked to make the process more efficient. In addition, the artists devised a new screen graphics pipeline for all the signage so they could be au- thored and organized efficiently. The buildings differed in size and material (glass, steel, concrete), with an average height compara- ble to the Empire State Building (1,250 feet). For construction, the artists used Autodesk's Maya for modeling, along with in-house tools for texturing, including Paint 3D for painting and proprietary software for materials creation. Rendering was done using Hyperion. Each building contained subparts that were mixed and matched, and reused, yet they still had to look unique. While Hyperion has instanced buildings before, all the little pieces and parts here presented a problem. "We were process- ing too much," Petti explains, noting that at peak, they were rendering equivalent to 1.9 million hours a day. So they rethought the entire instancing engine; instead of instancing a building, it would instance each piece inside and out. Meanwhile, the newly de- veloped screen graphics pipeline enabled the artists to track the plethora of screens and videos. While placement of the hundreds of thousands of buildings and screens was done procedurally, that only provided a starting point for the artists; everything still had to be art directed quickly and easily from that point forward. There are approximately 150 master sets in the film, unique environments including the arcade from the original Ralph, which had to be revamped to work I BU I LD I N G THE I NTER NET Ralph Breaks the Internet is Disney's 57th animated feature.