Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/491590
m a r c h . a p r i l 2 0 1 5 c g w 9 tive. It's UPA flat [like Mr. Magoo or Gerald McBoing Boing], Japanese anime with adorable large eyes, or superhero athletic. Everything seemed to fall in those categories except the collectible vinyl toys from artists all over the world. The desktop toys were unique in their design. So, I bought a bunch. I told Takao Noguchi, our character designer for Home, I wanted to have the Boov look like a vinyl toy you could put on your desk to hold a pencil." The Boov's most endearing feature is that their naturally purple color changes to reflect their emotional state. They literally wear their emotions on their skin. They glow. They have stripes and patterns. "Some emotions, like fear, instantly change their color," Ramasubramanian says. "Oth- ers have more subtlety. When a character lies, we wanted to feel like the color waits until he feels bad about it. The color- changing was complicated to produce, but it gives a nice dimension to these characters and to important story points." Ramasubramanian notes that Noguchi referenced aquat- ic animals for the Boov, using a six-legged squid for the body and legs, and a cuttlefish for the changing color and patterns. "The cuttlefish change patterns really fast," Ramasu- bramanian says. "It's amazing. It feels like the changes come from within. So we developed a new shader we called Parallax to make texture on a Boov look like it's inside. The shader parallaxes between the surface and the inside so that it looks like the change is within." The shader worked well, but the look wasn't what they wanted. "It looked creepy," Ramasu- bramanian says. "It looked like veins and arteries, which is what we set out to do, but it looked more organic than we wanted. It was more fun to have [the pat- terns] skin depth. So, we simpli- fied the patterns. We used the Parallax shaders in other places, though, when we wanted the texture to feel deep." The design language for the film gave the Boov circles, the humans rectangles, and the enemy Gorg triangles. So, rather than veins and arteries for the Boov, the artists designed sim- ple arcs and squiggles. "The color changes kept [the arcs and squiggles] saturated and moving along the skin from the head, the heart, or from an impact point," Ramasubramani- an says. "The design was simple, saturated, and playful. "I'm really happy about the work we did on the characters in visual effects," Ramasubra- manian adds. "This is an inti- mate story that stays close to our two characters. We wanted them to look rich and appealing, and I think the color changes for the Boov and Tip's costumes and hairstyles helped." T I P T O P The film Monsters, Inc., from Disney/Pixar, broke computer graphics ground in 2001 when the little girl Boo touched the hairy, blue monster Sully. Pixar scientists had invented a new state-of-the art hair and cloth simulation engine to solve the interpenetrations caused by that simple action. Today, animation crews take interactions like that for granted. But even so, in most animated films, the star has one hairstyle and, maybe, a couple costume changes. In DreamWorks' Home, 12-year-old Tip has seven cos- tumes and six hairstyles. "In live action, costumes are so important they give costume designers an Academy Award," Johnson says. "But in CG, we typically see one T-shirt and one hairstyle. We designed hair- styles and costumes for Tip in every scene. We treated her like a 12-year-old girl. As she goes from northern snowy weather to summer, she removes layers of clothing. It serves as a metaphor to warming up to the alien." To manage Tip's hairstyles, the team relied on new technol- ogy called Willow. "The biggest change was that rather than having hair go through many de- partments – surfacing, effects, modeling, and animation – we tried to have character effects own the process," Ramasu- bramanian says. "With Willow, they can iterate faster. They can make hair move and react the way they want, and get quicker feedback through rendering." Most remarkably, animators could have Tip touch her hair. Repeatedly. She ties her hair back into a ponytail, tugs it loose, and pulls a hoodie over- top. In some scenes, Tip chang- es her hairstyle within a shot. "Even in our studio, we have a joke where we say no one wants physical contact," Ramasubra- manian says. "We count and limit the number of times. But, the ability to make physical con- tact helps with the storytelling. We noticed people with curly hair tend to fiddle with the strands of hair, and thought that was a nice characteristic to bring out. In one scene, Tip is looking for her mom. She col- lects her hair, pulls it back, and puts a rubber band on it. We have a few other instances like that. They don't scream at you. They're something you would expect a young girl to do." A N I M A T I N G T H E B O O V Jason Reisig, the head of char- acter animation at DreamWorks ANIMATORS MANIPULATED THE BOOV'S SIX LEGS TWO AT A TIME AND UNCURLED THE FOREGROUND BOOV'S NOSTRICALS INTO HORN-LIKE SHAPES.