Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/457057
j a n u a r y . f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5 c g w 2 9 for the "backyard," the team scanned real-world objects. Plett found a rock shaped like the landmark "Big Rock" that lent its name to Big Rock Ranch down the road, which formerly housed Lucasfilm Animation. Once scanned, that became the fairy rock. Bog's throne is a scanned deer bone from Big Rock. "The main thing we tried to push was the details," Plett says. "I had worked on Rango. I knew these small-scale environments in the woods would need detail. George [Lucas] wanted this to be a real world. He said that if you looked under a rock, you might see one of these small creatures, so we tried to play the scale as close to the real world as we could." Environmental tools that had helped the crew create the des- ert landscapes and ramshackle buildings for Rango also proved useful when creating Strange Magic's detailed world. "Our approach was to build a large environment and then a layout team would scout for locations," Sumner says. "Once they found locations and blocked in the camera, the environment team would add details. [Senior TD] Carlos Munoz, who was also involved with Rango, led our amazing environment team." The team created a cata- log of plants, rocks, and other environmental elements, and then employed two key tools to place them in the scenes. With set dressing tools based in ILM's proprietary Zeno, artists could populate the ground with elements ranging from stones and small twigs to trees, and then populate the trees with foliage. The second tool, a multi-layered procedural terrain shader, made it possible to art-direct large areas. "We could describe and blend between stony areas, grass, and moss, for example, and it would hold up from a bird's-eye view to a close-up one inch from the ground," Sumner says. "We could cover any scope of ground." During a final layout phase, the artists would tweak the landscape to accommodate animation. "Andy Ritchie man- aged this group," Sumner says. "They were gardeners in a virtual sense. If a character stepped on plants, they would tweak them. They pruned foliage and made sure the environment worked without any crashing conflicts." AT TOP, MARIANNE AND BOG FIGHT TO HEART'S "STRAIGHT ON." AT BOTTOM, AFTER A DOSE OF LOVE POTION, DAWN "CAN'T HELP HERSELF." SHE'S INFATUATED WITH BOG.