Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/14320
n n n n Animation Maya and then converts the files into Pixar’s own Marionette for character rigging, anima- tion, camera, and lighting. Te challenge with the returning characters was to make sure the animators could match key expressions. “Bill Reeves built the articula- tion in 1993,” Quaroni says. “We had to load that software in 2007, and execute the same math, the same computations. Ten on top, we built the new rigs and did an A-to-B compari- son. Tere are quality differences, but we kept the feel of the characters—the way Buzz lifts an eyebrow, Woody’s special smile. We saw in- stances where we’d build a model and it would look like a cheap fake. It took three or four months to nail Buzz and Woody especially.” Cloth and Hair As for challenges on the technical side, Qua- roni cites two: hair and cloth. “Lee wanted to see hair and cloth working together before he approved the shots,” says Sanjay Bakshi, char- acter supervisor. Traditionally, Pixar used a 2D garment pat- tern system to cut out pieces of cloth and then stitched them together digitally, and the simu- lation engine expected clothes made in that fashion. For Up, the studio moved to the 3D solution, which became especially important for Ken. “His closet looks like a wardrobe de- partment,” Bakshi says. “We matched as many vintage clothes as we could find. We have Ani- mal Loving Ken, Rock Star Ken, Cool Times Ken, and more I can’t remember.” Te joke is that Ken has more clothes than Barbie. “He changes clothes for every shot,” Quaroni says. “He wears maybe 20 garments and has a closet full of more. We needed a faster system, better-quality simulations, and an improved workflow.” So, rather than having people who are expert tailors create Ken’s clothes and those for other characters in the film, modelers sculpted 3D clothes and sent them to a new simulation sys- tem. “Modelers understand form, and the cool thing was that we could make more garments,” Bakshi says. “With the new system [researcher] David Baraff worked on, cloth generates a quad mesh that we can throw at the simulator.” In addition to the toy Ken, a new human character, a child called Bonnie, wears three outfits. “She has mismatched socks and a cape over her clothes, with a necklace that she made atop that,” Bakshi says. And one of the toys, the Jolly Chimp (who is not jolly at all), is all-cloth. “We used the cloth system for his body and put fur on top,” Bakshi says. “We also used the fur system to create terry cloth for Ken’s clothes.” 16 July 2010 Toys in Stereo Stereo supervisor Bob Whitehill likes to call Pixar’s stereo style “comfortable, consistent, graceful, yet rewarding.” “We want to reward people for paying extra to see the film in 3D,” Whitehill says. “But we don’t want to add a distracting sheen.” When Whitehill supervised the conversion of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to ste- reo, he did so with some basic themes in mind. For those films, he concentrated on dialing down the stereo when the toys are in their world, and dialing it up when they’re in the human world to make it seem more overwhelming. Also, he increased the stereo depth when Woody and Buzz are alienated, and decreased it when they connect (see “Stereo Twice Over,” October 2009). That wasn’t so much the case with Toy Story 3. “This film is such an ensemble,” Whitehill says. “It doesn’t have the same character and thematic through lines. I just looked for opportunities to make the 3D pop in individual shots within a sequence.” For example, he dialed down the stereo when Ken and Barbie meet, but increased it during the dramatic scenes toward the end. Whitehill and the other stereo artists create the stereo camera by working in Pixar’s proprietary MenV software. In a shot with Woody peeking around a fire hy- drant, for example, he starts with the stereo dialed down. Grids representing the pos- sible stereo depth lay one on top of the other at Woody’s nose; Whitehill has dialed the stereo down. To increase the depth as Woody stretches forward, he pulls one grid forward to the fingertips of Woody’s right hand, and pushes the other grid back to the fingertips of the other hand, which is still holding onto the hydrant. “I look for the emotional beat, and play a visual accordion,” Whitehill says. Pixar did not design any of the shots for stereo. Unkrich, who had co-directed Toy Story 2, which Whitehill successfully converted to stereo 3D, knew that it wouldn’t be necessary. Even so, Whitehill did make some subtle changes. “Lee [Unkrich] likes to use shallow depth of field,” Whitehill says. “So, we broadened some shots for stereo and sometimes removed foreground elements to spread the depth. In 3D, an out-of-focus element draws your attention to it, which is not what it’s supposed to do. Also, he likes to put the camera down in the grass, so we raised it.” To cope with the problem stereo glasses cause by making the projected images look darker, Pixar color-timed a version of the film specifically for stereo. “It’s upsetting to the lighters and colorists,” Whitehill says, “because the whites have nowhere to go.” But, Whitehill notes that on home screens, darker images aren’t such a prob- lem. “I think people will be pleasantly surprised by the brightness,” he says. Whitehill supervised eight people credited with working on stereoscopy for the feature film and another four who helped, and it’s likely many of them will start working on another film soon. “All our films in the future will be in 3D,” Whitehill says. –Barbara Robertson