Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1334563
20 cgw j a n • f e b • m a r c h 2 0 2 1 My-Makers set: Autodesk's Maya and Pixologic's ZBrush for modeling; Maya for animation; SideFX's Houdini for effects; Foundry's Mari and Adobe's Substance Designer, Substance Painter, and Photoshop for texturing; Foundry's Katana for the base lighting; Foundry's Nuke for compositing; and Autodesk's Arnold for rendering. In addition, the studio used a suite of propri - etary plug-ins and other internal tools. He, Ear In the Earth sequences, the imagery is very tactile, as Keane really pushed details in the models and animation, according to Chan. "That was a big deal to Glen," she says. Sebastian "Sacha" Kapijimpanga, head of character animation, agrees, noting it took quite some time before the artists found the right amount of detail for Fei Fei, the first character they had built. "Glen was very specific about anatomical details. It was important that the corners of her mouth behaved in a certain way," he adds. Fei Fei has dark eyebrows, chopped black hair (from a cut she did herself), and strong eyes and lips. Keane, who had craed Ariel's fiery hair and the spiritual movement of Pocahontas's mane, sees a character's locks as so much more than a design element – rather, more a symbol of the character's plight. In Fei Fei's case, her hair reflects chaos, as she struggles with her mother's death. "It was such an incredibly difficult design," says Keane of Fei Fei and some of the other characters. "If you looked at the early animation, you'd see that these characters were oen coaxed into arriving at the target. There was a lot of experimenting that went on." David Alexander Smith, VFX supervisor, points out that Fei Fei's hairstyle didn't have a specific form, but instead was guided by Keane's sketches. "Hair will typically want to relax, and we needed it to feel natural and move naturally in the wind, but not relax at all, to keep that very distinctive form," he says. According to Kapijimpanga, there was a great deal of emphasis on pushing the anatomy and the acting level of the ter - restrial characters with nuanced perfor- mance. In this regard, Keane relayed to the t eam wisdom passed on to him by one of Disney's revered "Nine Old Men" – Don't animate what the character is doing, but instead what the character is thinking and feeling. So, rather than use an actor's performance for animation reference, the animators themselves acted out the motions, enabling them "to get into the skin of the character and have a true sense of what the character is feeling at that moment." "Kapijimpanga suggested this, saying we would get a performance that is so much deeper and heartfelt, and he was right," says Keane. "Rather than avoid those really subtle moments, we zeroed in on those and took the time to focus on Fei Fei's eyes, for instance. "If you're going to focus on anything, let it be the eyes of the character." Take Me to e Mn When Fei Fei first arrives on the moon, she lands on the bright side, which has a fairly realistic aesthetic in terms of design and an- imation, informed by reference from NASA. On the dark side of the moon is the world of Lunaria, a floating galaxy that rotates around Chang'e and her palace. "I remember when Glen first gave me a brief Artists replicated actual Chinese dishes for this feast scene.