Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1144162
36 cgw s u m m e r 2 0 1 9 tion and reflection, as well as, on the flip side, turn off light sources and hide some reflections as needed. Sometimes that task was done by hand, sometimes it was automated. In fact, the artists spent a lot of time with the RenderMan team, realizing that glass, lighting sources and practical illumi- nation were going to be especially challenging. In addition, they used a machine-learning denois- er from Disney Research Studio in Zurich that automatically removes the noise from a partially resolved global illumina- tion render. "The denoiser does such a beautiful job that we were actually able to cut our render times to almost half, with the same or better level of quality than we had in prior films," says Moyer. "It unlocked all these workflows for us that we hadn't been able to have before." The denoiser, which has not yet been released, was written in two versions: one for the GPU and one for the CPU. Pixar used the latter. Another level of difficulty in the antique mall resulted from the large amount of dust and spiderwebs. For the webs, the sets department used Houdini to create a sim- ulation that was effectively digital spiders infused with AI that built curves to form a web. As for the dust, the artists physically covered the ground with little curves of dust and chunks of debris to give it a texture, as opposed to simply adding a shading layer of dust over the objects. "A group from effects made sure there was always particles subtly floating in the air," says Moyer. "So every- where you looked in the mall, you feel a sense of age." FUN AT THE CARNIVAL Just across the street from the antique mall, which is static and old, is a dynamic, bright, colorful pop-up carnival. Again, the team visited county fairs and the like to get a sense of how the rides move. They also people-watched and discovered toy-size spaces, particularly underneath the rides and games. The simulation department rigged and animated the rides with controls to move appropriately. Then, within Houdini, the lighters created a half dozen to a dozen dif- ferent light cycles per ride that the director or production designer could choose from for each sequence, depending whether they wanted a calmer or more active look. In terms of lighting, "there are no cheats," Cooley notes. "During the day, carnivals are kind of gross, but at nighttime when they're all lit up, they're stunning and beautiful." Thus, lights were important. Cooley does not recall how many thousands of lights were used in the environment, "but they all work, they all blink, they all form patterns." When constructing the carnival as well as the other locales in the film, the modelers added lightbulbs, and included metadata that contained wattage and lumens information, which were then integrated into the lighting system and the renderer. As a result, all the lights illuminated automatically. "In the antique mall, we only had to turn the lights on or off, but we had to animate them at the carnival," says Reeves. "But, the carni- val lighting benefited from that upfront infrastructure we built into each light- bulb. Once we had everything built and assembled, it made things a lot easier to get those scenes up and running." And like all the film's environments, the carnival set had to work on a both a human and toy scale. CHARACTER UPDATES The film has many returning characters, from Buzz and Woody, to Hamm, Jessie, Rex, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, the child Bonnie, and others. There is even an appear- ance by Tin Toy, the star of Pixar's 1988 short. Among the newcomers are daredevil Duke Caboom, the villain Gabby Gabby, her ventriloquist dummy henchmen, and the come- dic duo of stuffed prizes Ducky and Bunny. And, making her reappearance is Bo Peep. Even though the overall design of the returning cast did not change, they again were reworked to take advantage of cur- rent technology. "It's not because we want to art-direct them any differently. In fact, we want Woody to look like Woody. We don't want to change him," says Reeves. "But, this is nine years aer the last Toy Story, and that version of Woody wouldn't work with our soware that's running today or in our renderer. So, we had to rebuild him and the others." The toys were aged slightly to reflect the passage of time since the last film, with subtle scratches on the hard-surface toys and fuzz on the cloth toys. While the geometry stayed pretty much the same, the shading was overhauled to an unprecedented level of detail to where tiny scratches are visible on Woody's face and little pieces of fuzz can be seen on his vest. "With the new renderer and denoiser, DUCKY AND BUNNY'S NEON PLUSH FUR REQUIRED ARTISTS TO FINE-TUNE THE SHADERS. NEW TO THE CAST IS GABBY GABBY AND HER VENTRILOQUIST HENCHMEN.