Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1505114
10 cgw j u ly • a u g u s t • s e p t e m b e r 2 0 2 3 tion, we could always go back. But in this case, we were working with them," Marshall explains. "We would meet all the time with anima- tors, talk about things that they're trying to do that maybe our rigs are supporting, how we can improve it, and how we can help them." The effects team relied on Houdini for the bulk of their workload, along with customized proprietary tools. "We also had to write a lot of custom solvers, particularly for our fire characters," Marshall ex- plains. "We had to augment their pyro simulation to be able to target shapes." The team would also modify fire simulations to run at much higher resolutions to deliver increased sharpness and more control. It was very important to develop effects-based solutions that would not impede the animation team's process. "We don't want to create constraints for them," Marshall adds. "We had to create a system that adapted to anything that they threw at us. It had to be as automatic as possible." VFX Supervisor Sanjay Bakshi When VFX supervisor Sanjay Bakshi first had a chance to see the film's storyboards, he understood the obstacles that lay ahead. "Ev- ery shot was an effects shot. Usually we have a few hundred effects shots, and this was the whole movie," he recalls. Houdini played an essential role in the VFX team's workflow, aug- mented by an arsenal of proprietary tools. "Every shot of Ember and Wade goes through Houdini roundtrip," Bakshi shares. "Animation saves their file, the simulation gets applied by Houdini, and that comes out so that we can render it in Renderman." The team also used Katana for lighting, Nuke for compositing, and Maya for model- ing, among many other specialized tools. Pixar's proprietary tools were especially tailored toward flame ef- fect customization. "We have a proprietary machine learning based stylization for flames that integrated into Houdini," Bakshi notes. "The pyro simulation is done in Houdini and then sent to a program The VFX team utilized Katana for lighting, Nuke for compositing, and Maya for modeling. The effects team relied on Houdini for the bulk of their workload.