Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1208556
DOOLITTLE www.postmagazine.com 29 POST JAN/FEB 2020 solve. Most of the time their bodies are covered with a mix of modeled feathers and Furtility feathers, and blended together with patches of straight-up hair," he explains. "Birds with patterns were also problem- atic. As the color is applied on each hair from the base to the tip, and a multitude of hair that makes up a feather, predicting exactly where some color would end up was sometimes frustrating." As for a favorite character, it was Jib the dog (voiced by Tom Holland) for visual effects supervi- sor Dykstra. "Dogs are tough to do well as virtual characters because people are so familiar with these animals," he explains. "We know how they move and what their expressions mean, so you real- ly have to do a detailed and accurate version of the character and their animation to fool the audience into believing a real dog can talk like Tom Holland." Of course, the animals had to talk. "Making them talk was not the challenge; the challenge was con- veying how they felt when they talked," says Aithadi. "The filmmakers were very concerned that the audi- ence relate to the animals — laugh with them or be sad with them. A major part of our research went into solving that problem without falling too far into the cartoon realm." BLENDING THE REAL AND THE VIRTUAL Whether Dolittle was dunking his head into octo- pus Leona's aquarium in the queen's palace or per- forming surgery on Kevin the squirrel, there is rare- ly a scene in which CG animals are not interacting with live actors or physical sets. In scenes with Poly the parrot and some of the smaller animals, stuff- ies on sticks were used to assist the actors with their eyelines, such as when Harry Collett moved around the bedroom set of his character, Dolittle's assistant Tommy Stubbins, interacting with Poly. "The stuffy was staged and choreographed by the director and a puppeteer to move and be in the proper positions for the dialogue interactions between the characters," Dykstra says. When the sequence was edited, the stuffy was replaced with the computer-generated parrot. For the larger beasts, puppeteers in green suits would perform in place of the animal characters to achieve the proper eyelines and the physical inter- action with the human character. For instance, in the dungeon flight sequence between Dolittle and Barry the tiger, Barry was portrayed by a green-suit- ed fight choreographer. He and Downey performed an elaborate fight routine, with wrestling and full- body contact. The performer was then replaced by the CG tiger. Yet, it's not just one or two CG characters in a scene; many scenes contain several digital animals. For instance, in most shots in the queen's chambers, there are at least seven or eight high-resolution hero characters present in the same frame. "The main challenge with this was the complexity it created due to the amount of hair grooms in the shots that had to be computed," notes Aithadi. BUILDING ENVIRONMENTS Principal photography occurred at Shepperton and Pinewood Studios, with some location shooting in the English and Welsh countrysides. However, a significant number of set extensions and complete CG environments were necessary to add to the magic of the Dolittle mansion and to the peril of some situations. According to Aithadi, there were three main full- CG environments crafted by MPC and Framestore. One was of the English countryside when Stubbins, Dolittle's assistant, rides Betsy the giraffe to catch up with Dolittle's ship. "The Welsh countryside was extremely complex, as we were riding that line between storybook aesthetics and photorealism," Aithadi notes. For this work, MPC once again used Maya, Katana, Nuke and Mari for the work, along with Adobe's Photoshop and Interactive Data Visualization's SpeedTree vegetation software. Another big all-CG environment involved the establishing shots of the pirate enclave, Monteverde, while large set extensions were required for the action on the grounds of the mansion. While all the CG environments had particular challenges, Aithadi describes Monteverde as "a huge, intricate undertak- ing, due to its massive scale, many details and water." Eventually, Dolittle and company arrive at the mystical Eden Tree Island — the archipelago and island were computer-generated, too. "We also created oceanscapes. Every shot on a boat was filmed on a soundstage at Shepperton Studios," says Aithadi. "We had to complete those shots with sometimes extreme close-ups of water simulations, which were very complex and technical." In fact, the film features various types of water. "First and foremost, there are oceans — we have a significant amount of ocean shots, and we had to create them all in the computer," says Aithadi. "And, the ocean water had sub-categories, like boat wake and splashes. We also have a waterfall, cannon ball splashes and, in some shots, we had to have feath- ery and fury animals interacting with the water." MPC employed two methods of generating the water. For the wide oceanscapes and ship shots, a Tessendorf system was incorporated, while Houdini fluid sims were used for the more intricate and high- er-resolution sims, such as when Plimpton the ostrich is drowning or for the shots containing the whales. A STORY WORTH RETELLING Lately there has been an uptick in the appearance of photorealistic animals in films, many in hero roles. And the work is getting so good that it is nearly impossible to distinguish the real versions from the virtual ones. Yet, challenges still remain. "Technology evolves and software becomes more powerful. However, every time you are telling a story from the perspective of a new director, it brings you new challenges and pushes you further into the Wild West of the visual effects," explains Aithadi. "CG animals are getting more realistic, but making animals talk in a realistic setting is still something that requires us to think differently. We are trying to create characters first that you can love or hate like any other characters." Although we have seen (and heard) Doctor Dolittle talk to the animals in the past, this time, digital artists have enabled us to believe that this can actually happen — even if it's just for an hour and 40 minutes. What might the animals say to the artists who gave them the ability to talk? Likely, job well done! Karen Moltenbrey (karen@cgw.com) is the chief editor of Computer Graphics World, Post magazine's sister publication. Many scenes featured multiple CG hero characters.