Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/259450
C G W Ja n u a r y / Fe b ru a r y 2 014 ■ 29 and where the contact points happened so we could work out how best to show the interactions." There is a plethora of effects, generated in Side Effects Houdini and other software, that help sell the interaction be- tween the CG characters and the real environments. In 3D The characters in Walking with Dinosaurs are large and fasci- nating. And because they are shown in stereo 3D, their pres- ence was even more commanding on screen. "Stereo 3D was a consideration at every step in the process," says Reichelt. Animal Logic partnered with 3D production and technology specialists Cameron Pace Group (CPG) for the 3D. The stereo plates were shot using CPG's Fusion Camera System and tracked using the LIDAR scans. According to Blasset, framing was a big consideration on location in terms of the stereography. Performances were reassessed within the stereo volume. Dailies were reviewed in stereo. Every element was examined. "Stereo is unforgiving if an element is slightly off," says Reichelt. "It changes the way you frame shots and perceive the characters. When you play with interocular distance and convergence, whether something is pushed to the back or brought forward, it has an impact on the story. How you con- tinue the stereo from one shot to another also has an effect. For instance, in the scene when the main character falls into the river, the director wanted more depth, more impact. So by increasing the interocular distance on those shots, we travel with [Patchi] in the water, and the audience is more immersed in the environment and not just looking at the screen." The journey back to prehistoric times was a long one for the Animal Logic team in Sydney, which collectively numbered 300. All told, they spent three and a half years immersed in the Cretaceous era, starting with an early test in mid-2010 to prove the concept of photoreal dinosaurs in live action. While Animal Logic has created CG characters for movies such as Legend of the Guardians and Happy Feet, that work was more stylized. With Walking with Dinosaurs, the artists accom- plished an evolutionary step from cartoony to photoreal. And they achieved this in a big way, walking in the footsteps of the prehistoric giants they brought to life on the big screen. ■ CGW Karen Moltenbrey is the chief editor of CGW. ■ WALKING WITH DINOSAURS follows Patchi, a Pachyrhinosaurus, as it grows from a hatchling into a herd leader. The film also features several other lesser- known but interesting dinosaur species. communicate [the design] very quickly," he explains. Krentz designed the main character species and their variants, including juveniles. "The cool thing with ZBrush is that you can do variations quickly and get those in front of the director," he notes. Later, Animal Logic transformed the sculpts into the animated models that eventually appear in the film and populated the environments with additional members of the species. The Pachyrhinosaurus provided a wealth of design oppor- tunity due to the shape of its skull and horns: This natural ornamentation enabled the artists to individualize the crea- tures while adhering to their mandate of "keeping it real." For instance, the horns could vary in size and shape. They could be bent forward or backward. Nose bumps could be made rounder or sharper. The personality of the charac- ters also played a part in Krentz's design. He used circular shapes for the hero Patchi, while Scowler was crafted with triangles and parallelograms to make him appear sharper, more edgy. For the female Juniper, the artist used soft- baked triangular shapes to giver her a more feminine feel. During the design phase, scientific information about the Pachyrhinosaurus was still being unearthed, and the scien- tific expert was prepping newly excavated fossils. "We were going back and forth on what the face looked like, things like that. But [the paleontologist] had enough information to make sound, educated guesses," says Krentz. Even though Krentz had visited the prehistoric period many times before, he never tires of creating dinosaurs. "This was a dream project for me. It's very rare in one's career to get a project like this," he says. – Karen Moltenbrey Dinosaur Designs