Computer Graphics World

January 2009 24 n n n n CG I Delicate Performances Seventy animators, divided into eight teams, worked on the film. Six teams animated sequences, one handled crowd animation using Massive and proprietary software, and an eighth team worked on final fixes. All the animators performed characters in each of the worlds. "All the way through the film, from the character design to the pacing of the scenes, we realized we were doing something differ- ent," Fell says. "e characters have quite so- phisticated designs, more sophisticated than the stop-frame characters I had worked on at Aardman, so we couldn't use a simplified animation style. But, we couldn't copy real- ity, either, because there would be no point. It was a real learning curve for us and the an- imation team—especially when it came to Princess Pea. It's quite easy to over-animate a delicate character design like that. And, we shot the film like a movie, with long shots where the characters really get to act." Creating performances that fit with the subtle lighting, soft textures, and the live-ac- tion pacing was a challenge for the anima- tors. "When a character has a big mouth and eyes, is funny, rubbery, and moves a lot, you can get away with murder," says anima- tion supervisor Gabriele Zucchelli. "But, with a pretty character like the princess, every gesture needs a delicate touch. Every millimeter counts. e mouth shapes have to be right. e shape of the eyes has to hint at emotion. It's the difference between using a sword or a needle." e other hero characters, although not as delicate, required the same light and careful touch in animation. So did the secondary characters. e chef needed an aristocratic attitude. e jailor shows a sweet side beneath his rough exterior. Despereaux's parents worry. "All the char- acters, even though they're stylized, needed to move naturally," Zucchelli says, "so we needed rigs that behaved properly. We had modules and mixtures of blendshapes, sculpts, deformers, and lattices appropriate to what we needed so we could tweak the animation depending on camera angles." To help with precision animation, the animators could view the characters with and without fur. ey could also place a fake iris and pupil in the rig to see how rendered reflections might affect eye lines. "e modelers built the eyes like real eyes, with a cornea that behaves like a cornea," Zucchelli points out. "And that slightly skews the light. But to put reflectivity into the face rig would suck too much memory to be interactive. So we had a little cheat that gave animators the effect." Although challenging, Zucchelli found the work exciting. "It was a refreshing expe- rience," he says. "Occasionally I felt, 'Oh my God, I wish I could express the emotions more openly.' But, we found that the more subtle the performance, the more the cam- era loved it. We learned to communicate in a naturalistic way, and it felt more real." Looking back, there were many "firsts" in this production. Tomov's first 3D film. e first animated feature for Ross. e first time Blackbourn had worked on cam- era moves and composed shots before any- one storyboarded the film. e first time some of the animators had created such elegant, refined performances for characters in a computer-generated film. And, the first animated film production for Framestore. And yet, or perhaps because of all those firsts, Despereaux works. Just as Ross had woven the separate stories from DiCamil- lo's book onto a lyrical screenplay, the de- signs created by Tomov, the camera moves led by Ross, soft lighting implemented by Armour and his team, and subtle character performances directed by Fell and Steven- hagen blended into a cohesive film unlike any other animated feature. "I'm proud of this movie," Ross says. "I think we've done something that's dif- ferent and beautiful. I feel blessed that we were able to do such a unique movie—and maybe a little spoiled." n Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net. The lighting artists often used diffuse lighting from big, bright objects, like windows, to produce soft light, especially for shots with tiny Despereaux, shown here reading a fairy tale rather than eating the book, as he was supposed to do as a mouse. 40,089 individual assets 25 hero characters modeled, surfaced, and textured 12 secondary characters 60 hero environments modeled, surfaced, and textured 413,138 hairs on Despereaux's head 1726 final shots delivered 1200 shots delivered during the last month of production 278 people on the crew 126,248 frames altogether

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