Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1495163
8 cgw j a n u a r y • f e b r u a r y • m a r c h 2 0 2 3 on top of it, you break up the edges — it gets a little more stylized," Edwards adds. "That was one of the key features we used everywhere." Amping Up the Action The team enhanced the film's action sequences by embracing an- ime-style movement techniques, including the selective implemen- tation of stepped animation. This technique freezes frames of a character's movement into stylized poses or beats, highlighting key moments in the action. Based on a similar technique developed for The Bad Guys, the 2D compositing team added textural, brushstroke-like action lines to emphasize motion. In other pivotal moments, entire characters or their individual limbs would be multiplied within a single frame to stylistically highlight movement and push the animation. "We were lucky because the Boss Baby teams had pushed all that into the pipe- line, so the animators had a really cool single-click system to drop that in wherever they needed," Edwards recalls. Edwards also worked close- ly with production designer Nate Wragg to add dramatic lighting and surreal color filters to heighten piv- otal action frames. "We leaned into this really graphic aspect in just a few key moments. So it's not used widely across the film, but they're very important scenes and we bookend them," he explains. "Again, we always think about the story- telling aspect." The team further accentuated the action by creating a tool for specialized rim lighting. If controlled correctly, rims produce a stylized graphic outline. "They made the rig, basically by default, for our charac- ters to include these white material lighting, graphic rims," he adds. "So we had one from camera le, one from camera right. Those could just be dialed in wherever we need- ed, so we could always get a nice graphic character." Finishing Touches One of the defining visual elements of the film is its purposeful camera and lens perspective. "We knew we were shooting through a camera. That was one of the things we es- tablished," Edwards recalls. "So the camera language and those kinds of optical effects were possible." This brought lens flares, depth of field, and bokeh to the film's visual style, which were all enhanced with graphic shapes and textural detail to match the style of the world. The team also developed a unique visual toolkit for water, bubbles, fire, rain, and magic effects. "Effects is not just the look, but it's the timing and the motion," he explains. "We thought about all of those elements in terms of impacts that are really quick and then settle, more like anime timing. We wanted the textural detail in the look." The final tool that brought the entire film together was MoonRay, DreamWorks Animation's in-house production renderer. Designed with a focus on efficiency and scalability, the high-performance Monte Carlo ray tracer includes an extensive library of produc- tion-tested, physically based materials. Kept in a continuous state of active development, MoonRay is now open source and available for general access. ¢ A layered approach to color fills each frame with dynamic hues.