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30 cgw w i n t e r 2 0 1 9 spy. But that all changes when he is turned into a mundane creature that can hide in plain sight. "A pigeon makes a good cover," says Quane. "That was part of the irony and comedy." Lance isn't the only pigeon in the film. But since he is a human trapped in a bird body, the animators did not give him the frenetic movements of this species. The other pi- geons, however, are more bird-like, with that itchy quality in the way they move. Indeed, Blue Sky is well acquainted with birds, having built a vast variety for its Rio series. However, for Spies in Disguise, the team stripped down and rebuilt an entire wing for all the pigeon characters. "It's amazing how complex simplifying some- thing becomes in order to open that wing and then fold it back up into a shield, and still have it remain graphic and stylized," says Quane. "It seems like a simple task, but it was one of the more complex things animation had to tackle." The more simplified design language resulted in far fewer feathers, which meant that any penetration between the feathers would be noticeable. "You couldn't hide it with 40 different feathers moving in and out of one another. If you do that with seven feathers, then you definitely notice it," says Gabor. "So we had to come up with a whole new collision-detection tool that animators could apply to their scenes." Lance and his cover weren't the only characters to present technical difficulties. When Lance and Walter have to interrogate Kimura, Killian's hulking henchman, Walter "goo's" him with a device that liquifies his bones, rendering him temporarily boneless and turning him into a gelatinous blob. To create this challenging effect, the animators first used TVPaint's 2D animation soware to previs the jelly motion, and then worked hand-in-hand with effects and the simula- tion team to make sure every part of Kimura (a combination sim and rigged model) felt squashy and believable. "He's also covered in tattoos, so any overly- done stretching or cheats to the materials were going to be apparent," says Gabor. "Everything had to be done just right and blend together well. If one part of the body started overstretching and didn't pull from another part, it became noticeable that you were cheating the look." World Domination Spies in Disguise takes audiences on a worldwide adventure with real-world loca- tions in Italy, Mexico, Japan, and Washington, DC, as the directors contend that portraying these actual locations helped further ground the story in reality. This was particularly im- portant to contrast with the comedic value of turning the main character into a bird. Nevertheless, because this is CGI, model- ers had to build all these unique locations, resulting in a tremendous amount of assets in order to make each locale distinctive. Complicating this further was that the locations were featured at various times of the day. Also, within these sets are subsets, as some of the action occurs underwater as well as from sky level. Sometimes the action is shown from the human eyeline level, and other times from pigeon eyeline level. In Bruno's opinion, Venice is the most intriguing set in Spies in Disguise, with its exotic personality and the signature canals and landmarks, which the crew strived to re-create as true as possible, even in terms of their directionality within the city. "Our production designer and modeling depart- ment created interchangeable canal blocks that felt distinctly like Venice, yet could be rearranged to create more of this labyrinthi- an style of the canals that take you all the way to the Piazza San Marco, which is such an iconic location," he says. To sell the loca- tion further, the artists added just the right quantity of moisture in the air for Venice, while in Mexico, for instance, they account- ed for the blistering heat. Gadgets and Tradecraft What's a spy movie without amazing gadgetry? On this front, Spies in Disguise also delivers with the typical spyware, such as cuff-link bombs and bow-tie cutters, but there's a lot of atypical technology, too, such as kitty glitter, which makes people momentarily happy so they lose their ag- gressiveness. As one might expect from a techno-ob- sessed villain, there are drones, and lots of them, which are constantly interacting with the environment. On top of this, there are lots of simulations – bubbles, explosions, sparks, water, dust. "It's an action-packed movie,. Effects definitely had more work than they have ever had on a previous film here," says Gabor. "The scope of the work was ginormous." According to Gabor, this required a strong ARTISTS RE-CREATED VENICE AS ACCURATELY AS POSSIBLE FOR THE FILM.