Computer Graphics World

June 2009 14 ■ ■ ■ ■ Character Modeling•Animation content, in his easy chair as his house fl oats past skyscrapers. And then, Russell knocks on the door. "When Pete and Bob pitched the story, with Bob reading, it brought John to tears," says Jonas Rivera, producer, referring to the directors Docter and Peterson, and to John Lasseter, Pixar's chief creative offi cer. e idea originated with Docter and Peterson noodling around with an escape fantasy, of just fl oating away. ey wanted to fi nd a unique character, one they hadn't seen before in an animated feature. Docter drew a grouchy old man holding a bunch of brightly colored balloons. ey laughed, the brainstorming began, and soon the balloons were fl oating the old man in his house. All they needed to do then was discover why the old man was in a fl oating house, where he would go, and what would hap- pen when he got there. It took three years or so—Peterson, Docter, and story artist Ronnie del Carmen started in 2004. When the Ratatouille pro- duction pulled Peterson off the Up project for a while, Docter brought in omas McCarthy, writer and director for e Sta- tion Agent, who "took notes for six to eight months," as Rivera puts it. "We spent a lot of time on the story," Docter says. " e actual production was only during the last year and a half. It's our 10th fi lm now, and we have really good people who have honed their craft. We could push the production schedule." Simplexity As Docter, Peterson, and del Carmen worked to refi ne the story, production de- sign began developing the visual language. " e story is about a house pulled by bal- loons fl oating in the sky," Docter says. "We needed to create a world where that was possible. e story pushed us to a level of stylization we'd never done before." Ricky Nierva, the production designer, named the resulting look "simplexity." " is is a movie about age, about the au- thenticity of life," Nierva says. "Our big challenge was not to make it too photo- real. Otherwise, why not make it live action? On the other hand, if you pull too much detail away, it looks like cheap CG. So we looked for the sweet spots for characters, en- vironments, and details." For design inspiration, the character and production designers chose the work of Mary Blair, a Dis- ney artist who developed the color and style for Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan, Russell's multiple layers of clothing and Carl's thick jacket and boxy trousers created unique problems for the cloth-simulation team to solve. At fi rst, character developers tried making Carl's hair thick, but it was too distracting. He's three heads tall and square. His head is square. His trousers are big and boxy. Even the age spots on his hands are square. But, he didn't start life that way. When he was only eight and fi rst met Ellie, his face had a little roundness. Still, he and his family are obviously more rigid than Ellie and her family, as we see at their wedding. In their house, pictures of Carl are in square frames, while pictures of the two together are in square frames with an oval matte. After Ellie dies and Carl stops selling balloons, all the circles are gone from his life, and his design becomes total- ly square. He withdraws from life. He's boxed in, stuck in his ways. That is, until someone threat- ens his reclusive life in his homespun memo- rial to Ellie; and then, with the help of 10,000 balloons, he soars. For his adventure, Pixar provided a family of enthusiastic circles to soften the grouchy old guy's edges. The technical challenges for Carl were in rigging a cube's facial expressions to show emotion, and in creating the silhouettes animators wanted despite his oversized jacket and boxy, wide pant legs. As a result, Pixar calls him the most complex character it has created. stylization we'd never done before." Ricky Nierva, the production designer, named the resulting look "simplexity." " is is a movie about age, about the au- thenticity of life," Nierva says. "Our big challenge was not to make it too photo- real. Otherwise, why not make it live action? On the other hand, if you pull too much detail away, it looks like cheap CG. So we looked for the sweet spots for characters, en- vironments, and details." For design inspiration, the character and production designers chose the work of Mary Blair, a Dis- ney artist who developed the color and style for Wonderland, square frames, while pictures of the two together are in square frames with an oval matte. After Ellie dies and Carl stops selling balloons, all the circles are gone from his life, and his design becomes total- ly square. He withdraws from life. He's boxed in, stuck in his ways. That is, until someone threat- ens his reclusive life in his homespun memo- rial to Ellie; and then, with the help of 10,000 Pixar calls him the most complex character it

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