Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1192296
w i n t e r 2 0 1 9 c g w 2 5 but also the actual storytelling – in the same way light is used in CGI. In essence, they wanted to develop a custom lighting tool that would give characters as much volume and texture as the backgrounds. "When Sergio pitched us the look he wanted, we were uneasy. You can achieve that by painting frame by frame, but that's obviously not something you want to do for a feature that is 135,000 frames – let alone make it consistent, since every artist paints a little differently," says Biernacki. Using a rare blend of artistic and technical knowledge, Jakubowski began experiment- ing with existing soware designed for an- other function entirely, and used that for the film's proof of concept in 2015: a two-min- ute, 30-second video. In order to handle an entire feature film, however, that tool would have to evolve. SPA Studios then reached out to Les Film du Poisson Rouge in France, which had developed texture-tracking soware. "Basically, we merged the method we had developed for the proof of concept with their tracking system, resulting in a tool designed specifically to be super-efficient and super easy to use," says Jakubowski. The result was KLAS, which stands for Klaus Light and Shadow. "It used to be that to light a character, you would actually draw the shadow to the character, and then you would decide how hard the transition between the light and shadow would be. And that would always be the same. It was limited," Pablos explains. "But that's not how light works." Also, the process used to be time-consuming, since the artist had to draw and in-between the shadow by hand. But with KLAS, an artist can complete an entire set of lighting with all the com- ponents, mimicking the way artists paint light in Photoshop for a digital illustration by integrating the most important layers. In a nutshell, the artists are splitting the light into several components, such as direct light and shadow, ambient light, rim light, and bounce light. Because the artist designs each of those components, in the end, they have very precise control of the lighting and can blend characters into their environments, so they are not "stuck" onto a beautiful painting, as is the case in most 2D animated movies. "This tool allowed them to do that in movement, and it takes less time than doing a single layer of shadow the way we used to do it," Pablos points out. "As a storytell- er, having the ability to use the light and integrate all the elements of the shot so it seems like it's painted by the same hand is a gi that we tried to use to the full extent in this movie," he says. Pablos compares this tool to Meander, which was used for Disney's animated hybrid short film Paperman (2012), which tracked 2D drawings on top of CGI geom- etry. "But now you are doing this on top of actual drawings, and it works in the same way," he adds. As Biernacki points out, they weren't trying to replicate realistic lighting by faking a 3D render. "The look is still centrified and based on graphic shapes and caricature, even though we are playing with light and color as much as possible," he adds. In addition to KLAS, which was used for the lighting, Les Films Du Poisson Rouges also provided its proprietary tools to add texture on top of the characters. The artists in story- boarding, animation, cleanup, ink and paint, and 2D effects used ToonBoom's Harmony; for backgrounds, Adobe's Photoshop. For compositing, they used Foundry's Nuke. Creating Klaus The idea for Klaus came to Pablos in 2010, and he spent approximately a year writing and working with concept designers to develop a pitch. With no specific plans for it, the project was shelved. The Spanish TV network Atresmedia Cine picked it up in 2014. Netflix signed on in 2017 and prepro- duction began. Insofar as the project is traditionally ani- mated, there are some elements and shots that were created in CGI because that was the best solution for the scene. "Our philos- ophy has been to keep as big of a toolbox as we can," says Pablos. "And we used every trick in the book, as long as it made sense." THE FILM'S 2D AESTHETIC GIVES IT A NOSTALGIC LOOK, YET UPDATED FOR THE CURRENT GENERATION THANKS TO NEW TOOLS AND PROCESSES. A NEW CUSTOM LIGHTING TOOL, KLAS, WAS DEVELOPED TO GIVE CHARACTERS VOLUME AND TEXTURE.