Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316365
PEOPLE www.postmagazine.com 27 POST NOV/DEC 2020 forms until they had somewhat of a recognizable character that was malleable enough to be almost anything. The form they settled on was simplistic: a line. "Not just any line, though," says Podesta. "We're talking about a living line." Modelers at Pixar started out by creating 3D wire sculptures, as animators evaluated how the characters could take shape, viewing them from different angles and dimensions with different expressions and in different forms. Then the anima- tors began exploring shapes, expressions, move- ments and transitions. As Podesta points out, the animators didn't just animate a model, they animated a design. "The characters captured that sense of a living line, a piece of art in the form that was understand- able yet still ethereal," he says. "To achieve the sense of design within the animation, our anima- tors had to pull from their backgrounds as artists to craft a visually-stunning performance." An entire style language had to be devised from scratch, and then it had to be consistent — which is more difficult than it might seem. "You might think that a line looks like the easiest thing in the world to animate, but the technology behind creating these counselors is mindboggling. There's a lot of layers," Podesta says. "The counsel- ors are one of the biggest challenges we've ever animated at Pixar." Because the counselors were living lines, their shape could be literally anything. Animation had to hit whatever shape they needed and have enough controls so arms could appear at different points — and blend eyes, a nose and a mouth in a very simple line, always maintaining a smooth line, Page says. In fact, animators could control every point if they wanted to, and move those points around. Initially, the group looked at a spline-based solu- tion akin to what was used for Hank's tentacles in Finding Dory, but found that too complex for what was needed here, so they used a NURBS curve. So while the control points the animators were choos- ing were a bit offset from the final curve, a baseline was always maintained. "In each of those characters, it's just a curve with about 310 to 330 control points [animators] could use to pose [the character]," Page explains. "Some of those control points could turn into an arm. We have controls in there that could tag the parts of the line to indicate an arm right now, or a hand, or an eye. And they would have the kind of standard arm control with elbows, or they could treat it just as a simple line. In some instances, they could take each one of those control points and just pose them by hand to make a specific shape. They're just taking a line with a lot of points, but we had systems whereby they could go from the super complex to the very simple, and from a more standard-rigged character to just a single line." Then, procedurally within Houdini, the team would create surfaces to the camera, and deter- mine which of those surfaces they were using to cut out of a bigger surface, or which were shaded. It was all done per frame, with a kind of tagging on the line, Page notes. "For instance, when one of the counselors laughs, the whole body wiggles. It changes form and then pops back into shape," says Podesta, although the process was very labor-intensive. There is a model underneath the form so anima- tors could identify the head, arm, torso, etc. On top of the model, though, animators were manipulating the lines. Podesta believes the counselors are characters unlike anything seen before in film. Nevertheless, the performance had to resonate as familiar and authentic, especially with the realistic animation outside of The Great Before. "At first, we didn't know how we were going to accomplish this, but we knew we must," he says. "All along this unique journey, the art was chal- lenging the technology, and the technology was inspiring the art." Page concurs, noting that in terms of charac- ter modeling, the crew at Pixar "did things within shading and volumetrics, and within Houdini for the characters, that we had not done before. And for the counselors in animation, that was an entirely new process for animation to interact with the 3D model in a kind of free-form link from a line to a character." THE END, OR RATHER, THE BEGINNING In Soul, Joe finds himself on an eye-opening jour- ney he didn't expect to take. "Joe Gardner is all of us," says Powers. "I think anyone can empathize with this idea of question- ing whether they're doing what they're meant to be doing. At what point do I give up on this thing I've been pursuing for so long?" So, for those who think Soul is about life and death, they are incorrect. "It's about finding that thing that makes life worth living," says Murray. It's also about a person's inner drive. "No matter how far we've come, we some- times wonder about greener grass. We're always pushing," says co-screenwriter Mike Jones. "There's always that drive in an artist to create something, to never be satisfied." As Docter points out, there's more to living than a singular passion — as expressive and fulfilling as that may be. "Sometimes the small, insignificant things are what it's really about," he says. "Almost any moment in our lives could be a transcendental moment that defines why we're here. This film is about broadening the idea of a singular focus to thinking more widely about what life has to offer and what we have to offer life." 'Counselors' represent some of Pixar's most challenging work. LIFE CHANGES In Soul, Joe Gardner is presented with a very unexpected situation. The same can be said for the film's animators. With some shots still unfinished, COVID hit, and, just like that, the studio shut down and everyone at Pixar was sent home. Then, the technical teams jumped into action, getting most of the group online later that evening. "The next day we were working," says Bobby Podesta, animation supervisor. "It is remarkable, really, and we're still working remotely. We're still making movies right now that will come out next year or the year after."