Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1530710
12 cgw o c t o b e r • n o v e m b e r • d e c e m b e r 2 0 2 2 parency, that doesn't work because you see through the objects. So if you wanted to filter things, we needed to extend the Cryptomatte data format to be able to do some of these very clever spatial filters on the compositing operation. Having these tools at the artists' disposal as opposed to some- thing that's just like a procedural filter was so critical because you feel the artist's hand, you feel their intent. Where you put detail is very much like an illustrator, like I want some hatching here in the key light, but on the shadow side, I want a simpler representation. I'm not trying to make the image simpler. I want to make it more sophisticat- ed, and you do that by guiding the eye. That allows the audience in to a very immersive experience. I think by not articulating every blade of grass, it allows the audience to embrace it as their own and fill it in themselves. I think it makes it more of an endearing experience. RZ: Because great painters are actually great editors that are choos- ing what to show off and what to change and what to manipulate to show their point of view. Now we have those tools, and we can work fast enough. I think that was the problem before—you could maybe have something that could emulate what we did, but it would be painstaking. JB: We have all these tools at our disposal. But if you can bring some of that forward into the asset construction, it makes your job so much easier. You still have all those incredible things that you can do later to manipulate the image. You would never make a realistic bush and filter the bush to make it look painterly. If you want a painterly plant, draw the plant. RZ: You don't want to be filtering stuff later to cover up something you don't like. What we ended up with was every asset just looked so cool that it could stand on its own. When you want to blend it in, it's going to look great, too. Because that was kind of an older mindset, "Alright, we're just going to filter out the reality of stuff." But this just ended up being way more targeted. JB: The hardest one is, what do you do with characters that are made out of fur and feathers? They're just by design, incredibly vi- sually complex. We had to think about how a painter would paint. I think living in this space offers some advantages because you can have physical motion rigs that are more indicative of naturalistic be- havior of animals. You can have this really interesting mix of sophis- tication and richness. RZ: Because it's camera based and it's light based, so it has a 2D mentality. It's what you're seeing and how you're editing and where you're placing detail. I think that philosophy of what a painter would do along with the technology of being able to calculate both of those things and change things accordingly is pretty great. JB: Even something like depth of field, you would never fully realize a painting and then just blur it. That doesn't make any sense. So you have to think about, how would you actually deconstruct an image similarly to a painter? How does that move as the camera moves? Those are the really challenging problems that we love to work on because I think it gives the audience a new, novel experience. The team transitioned from sRGB to a more vivid P3 color space.