Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/19812
n n n n Simulation he says. “ And, of course, D isneyland is in - spired by European buildings, so w e kind of went shopping for charm and appeal.” As with the village, the directors wanted the environments to be cozy and charming, too . “We have very few scenes where you look out over a huge vista,” Goetz says. “We cut off sight lines by pushing trees and hills in the way.” Even within the environment, the partic- ulate matter—dust motes created with par- ticle simulation within a light ray—helped give the space a tangible feeling. One of the largest effects, though, was a dam-breaking sequence. “B asically, w e’re using P hysbam libraries that we have implemented and in - tegrated into our pipeline for water simula - tions,” Goldberg says. And, not surprisingly , Rapunz el ends up underwater in a cav ern after the dam bursts. “We put the hair curves through a flow field,” Goldberg says. “ When her hair glo ws, they can see the way out. We were all so ex cited and thrilled when w e saw those tests come through. Tey involved so much interaction between the departments.” It would pr obably be a str etch to imagine that in tr ying to cr eate a CG film that cap- tured the feeling of Disney films from the ’40s and ’50s, the cr ew also captured some of the adventuresome spirit of those early days of feature animation. But, maybe not. “With CG, you can do anything,” Howard The team animated the 36 characters in the village and the 21 bar thugs by hand rather than using crowd-animation software and motion cycles, and every character had a unique design and personality. The directors and animation supervisors consider the bar sequences to be among the most complex and difficult in the film. them to be better than any crowds in any oth- er movie. Effects helped us with 1200 people in the plaza, but otherwise, we hand-animated them for the most part.” Rather than populating the village with CG characters driven by motion cy cles and cr owd- animation r ules, Kaytis wanted to cr eate a town with real people doing r eal things. So, he invented little stories for each of the 36 distinct villagers. “I plotted out ev eryone in town every day,” he says. “Te guy buying fish is doing that because he wor ks in a r estaurant, and w e’ll see him in the r estaurant later. Te mother and fa- ther with a son are from out of town. Tey’re on a holiday, enjoying the sights. We see the village through Rapunzel’s eyes, so it has to be immer - sive. CG robots wouldn’t sell it.” Similarly, the 21 bar thugs each had a different personality, body shape, and design. As he planned the shots in the village, Kay- tis worked within a set designed to be charm - ing, with buildings not taller than one or two 32 November 2010 stories and ev erything at a graspable human level, as Goetz describes it. “Te town was like a backstage set,” Kaytis says. “You could shoot in one dir ection and then turn the camera ar ound and find new cubbyholes and details in the buildings. You definitely became intimate with it. You know the str eet corners. You kno w that this guy works in that building. And once y ou know all that, it makes your life easy. It became kind of a game in a way. Definitely more interesting than stamping five characters.” Kaytis shared the fun by giving each animator vignettes to do. A guy fishing from a bridge. A woman sweeping the porch. Someone picking apples. Tree students sitting on the stone steps. “It was kind of like the S ecret Santa,” Kaytis says, “a cool little break from production.” If the village seems familiar as w ell as charming, one r eason might be that the di - rectors were, according to Goetz, inspired by Disneyland. “We took pictures of everything,” says. “And, as a result, live-action films are be- coming more dazzling and eye-popping. Ani- mation has to keep up . It has to be as amaz - ing as live action. Te action sequence in the underground cavern, we think it’s the biggest one Disney has done. It looks spectacular. We threw down the gauntlet and the crew rose to the occasion. Tey wanted to do this. Tey want to make better films. And this film will drop jaws.” Just as they kept the classic feel of the D movies from the ’40s and ’50s while bringing the pacing and jokes into the contemporar y world, the dir ectors managed to incorporate the feeling of cr eating classical animation within a 21st centur y, collaborative working environment and with 21st century effects. “You hav e to understand, ” Kaytis says. “Tis whole building. Our crew. Tis team is so tight now. It’s really the process—the pro- cess was the best process. To see this team grow and step into the challenge, I couldn’t be more proud of them.” n Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for Computer Graphics World. She can be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net. isney