Computer Graphics World

June 2009 20 ■ ■ ■ ■ Character Modeling•Animation center, consulted a behaviorist nearby, and, of course, studied their own dogs. "If you look at their designs," Clark says, "Dug's nose is really big, almost a Snoopy nose. But we do things with the behavior of the rig to fl avor the animation more toward re- alism. We have controls to give them that little fl avor, but we consciously chose to do dog behavior." In addition to the happy-go-lucky Dug, the fi lm features Muntz's pack of hunting dogs, which he trained to serve him—even to the point of serving dinner, albeit somewhat sloppily. Where Dug is round and happy, the pack dogs are an- gular and serious. Alpha, a Doberman, leads the pack with Beta, a Rottweiler, and Gamma, a bulldog, right behind him. All the dogs talk via a high-tech col- lar that, among other things, translates their thoughts into spoken words. Peter- son voices Dug and, with some technical tricks, Alpha. "Pete and I are lifelong dog lovers," Peter- son says. "So we looked for a unique way to have Carl and Dug talk. e collar allowed us to get the behavior of a real dog and hear its thoughts; Dug could be scratching his ear while he's talking." e real behavior of Alpha, Beta, and Gamma's pack, on the other hand, is often frightening, especially when they turn their hunting prowess toward Carl, Russell, and Kevin. But as we learn and Peterson affi rms, " ere are no bad dogs, only bad masters." e bad master in Up is Charles Muntz, voiced by Christopher Plummer, whose design is as angular as that of his hunt- ing pack. "Pete's challenge to us was he wanted the audience to feel like Muntz was a warm, loving grandfather, who could become sinister at the drop of a hat," Jordan says. e crew accomplished that, in particular, by rigging his eyes and eyebrows to be appealing or scary, and through shading. "Athena Xenakis was able to fi nd the right shading details on his face, such as crow's feet, that could be enhanced or hidden, and to make his eyes look sinister when com- bined with certain lighting," Jor- dan points out. "When he's hold- ing a lantern and talking about his obsession with Kevin, we goosed the lighting to bring out the creepy details." Muntz—Carl, and Ellie's childhood hero—forces the climax of the fi lm. Carl learns what a well-rounded adventure in the circle of life really is, and always was. And, Pixar reminds us, for the 10th time, that the medium is deep enough to hold any story, whether funny, adventurous, scary, emotional, heartwarming, heart- breaking, heartpounding, or, sometimes, all of that rolled into one. at is, one meticulously designed and accomplished fi lm named Up. ■ Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net. Like all the dogs in Up, Dug wears a high-tech collar that translates his thoughts into spoken words, but Dug is different from the rest of the pack. He's round; they're angular. He's the happy-go-lucky nerd of the hunting pack, sent out by the others on a hopeless mission to get him out of the way. And that's when he adopts Carl and Russell. For the animators, the goal was to give all the dogs realistic behavior, yet still have them fi t within the caricatured style of the fi lm. sinister at the drop of a hat," Jordan says. e crew accomplished that, in particular, by rigging his eyes and eyebrows to be appealing or scary, and through shading. "Athena Xenakis was able to fi nd the they're angular. He's the happy-go-lucky nerd of the hunting pack, sent out by the others on a hopeless mission to get him out of the way. And that's when he adopts Carl and Russell. For the animators, the goal was to give all the dogs realistic behavior, yet still have them fi t within the caricatured style of the fi lm. Russell, Dug, and Kevin helped soften Carl's edges, but meeting his childhood hero Charles Muntz gave Carl's adventure its most exciting turn. For Pixar's fi rst adventure in Disney Digital 3D-land, the studio focused inward, turning stereo into a window, rather than lobbing gags out from the screen and into the audience. "We used [stereo] 3D to help tell the story," says director Pete Docter. "When Carl is stuck in his house, we kept it fl at, but when he's standing on a cliff, we wanted to feel the wind on his face." Stereoscopic supervisor Bob Whitehill devised a depth script based on the color script. When Carl and Ellie are young and life is colorful, the images have depth. When Ellie dies and the color fades from Carl's life, the images are fl at. Then, Russell shows up. The scenes get deeper and deeper. Notes supervis- ing TD Steve May, "Everything [at Pixar] has always been 3D, so, technically, it was just matter of adding a camera and rendering." –Barbara Robertson Deep Emotions

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