Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/426320
n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 c g w 3 9 ject in the scene using separate render outputs. Within Nuke, we pushed pixels around using that noise pattern. Because it was baked onto Winston, for exam- ple, it would stick to him." Because the noise pattern was specific to each object, the artists could use less noise for some, such as Winston's dog bowl, and more for a carpet or Winston's fur, and thereby change the material property. The team also rendered out each object separately to con- trol and change the color values. "We would take the surface color and swing the value of every object in the scene in Nuke," Staub says. "The render output would have red, green, or blue for every object as a way to create mattes, so we could select elements and apply color changes. Winston's black might be blue, his white might be green, his tongue red, and in separate passes, his eye white might be green and his iris blue. His collar and tag would be two different colors. A cabinet's wood parts would be one color and the knobs a different color. That gave us ac- cess in Nuke so that we could swing the colors or darken and lighten the values." C O N T I N U I T Y A N D C H A L L E N G E The resulting Nuke scripts were heavy and complicated. "We assembled a lot of piec- es in Nuke," Staub says. "When I show people the scripts, they think it's extremely technical. But, every node in our Nuke graphs is an artistic decision to maybe make that couch a little lighter and Winston a little dark- er. You do that in Photoshop, but you don't have a crumb trail. Nuke gave us that crumb trail." To maintain continuity in the way the film looked, the process the artists used was necessarily rigid. "We used the same technique for the edge breakup through- out, and added it in the same order," Staub says. "The artists all started with surface color. Made color adjustments. Added the light shapes, then the edge breakup and the depth of field. If they changed the order, it would look radically different." However, because each shot was a one-off, and because time passed quickly, shot-to- shot continuity didn't matter. The couch could be darker in one shot than in the next. Art- ists had creative freedom. The result is a delightful film with a look that truly brings concept art onto the screen in a 3D world. The look is unlike that of any other film. Food might be the most important thing to a dog, but artists are fueled by creative challenge. "Artists don't want to always do the same thing," Staub says. "We want to stretch and push into uncomfortable areas. When we started the show, we didn't know how to do much of what we needed to do. So, it was very satisfying. It's such a great feel- ing when we achieve something that's new. We can take that knowledge to the next show." ¢ Barbara Robertson is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for CGW. She can be reached at BarbaraRR@comcast.net. SOUND BITES When Director Patrick Osborne filmed his family dinner using the "1 Second Everyday" app, he was particularly intrigued by the sounds on the resulting video. "I could hear conversations in the room," he says. Osborne wanted to incorporate that idea into his short animated film "Feast." "I worked with Julian Slater, who did 35 unique sound environments because we were cutting so much," Osborne says. "He did sounds under a table and on top. Claustrophobic inside and expansive outside." Winston's bark is oen Julian's voice. "They recorded a Boston terrier," Osborne says. "But the sound wasn't cute enough." – BR WHEN WINSTON ISN'T IN THE LIGHT, HIS WORLD ISN'T GOOD. A PROCEDURAL NOISE PATTERN HELPED GIVE THE EDGES A PAINTERLY QUALITY.