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s e p t e m b e r . o c t o b e r 2 0 1 6 c g w 2 7 of the surface," says Smith. "Though we wanted the hair to look realistic, we tried for a more graphic look in the design of the combs." However, they styled the human hair with Kami, as well Maya's Xgen instancing plug-in, ultimately funneling the animation through Maya's nHair for dynamics. S T O R K S W I T H O U T F E A T H E R S The only surface for which instancing geometry and extensive dynamics would be too harshly realistic for their Looney Tunes performances would be the feathers of the storks. Junior's arm is a wing, then a hand, with or without a thumb, or a brandishing index finger. "We had to engineer this incredibly robust system where, anatomically, Junior's wing would function like a wing, with a tendon attached to the wrist and the shoulder, and fold into this beautiful streamlined shape tucked close to the body. Then it would suddenly emerge like he's a dude with an arm," says Beveridge. Using an elaborate set of IK controls and deformers in Maya, along with their TweakIt tools, an- imators worked with a wing that, in its default position, resembled a brick, but, as Beveridge says, "with all the controls engineered to work closely with each other, they could easily make any shape with it they wanted." For the wings, though, effects artists could not resort to a proliferation of instanced feathers. Instead, they had built shaders in Arnold that would give surfaces, like the Gardner's skin and clothes, the tangible, sanded granularity of Clayma- tion, and even add, to a greater or lesser degree, light fuzz. It's these shaders that captured the feel of so down. Feeding them into Katana, the lighting artists were able to use them to populate a surface with short, diaphanous hair. L O O N E Y T U N E S M E E T S R E A L I T Y The high-contrast, naturalistic approach to the cinematog- raphy can be seen in almost every scene, from the dour, industrial atmosphere of the warehouse, to Hunter's office, and the sepulchral shadows of the wolf cave. "We really did want to push high key lighting, very strong rims, and strong light sources," says Smith. Artists sculpted the lighting for every scene in Katana, where they also honed the carefully designed lighting and color keys that draw an emotional dis- tinction between the subdued color palette of suburbia and the more saturated hues of Stork Mountain. The lightning-quick Looney Tunes animation became a ren- dering challenge as well, requir- ing a new approach to motion blur to prevent characters from vanishing under the sheer speed of their movement. "We wanted to push motion blur on this film, so we used a backwards shutter [in Katana], opening it up to give us a harder leading edge," explains Smith. "There were a couple of pans where you'd see a little bit of strobing, and we'd have to go for a more traditional shutter that's open on either side; but for the most part, we got away with a strong leading edge and a little bit of a strob- ing, which resonated with the more cartoony, graphical side of the film." Honing the motion blur and lighting in Katana, and com- positing in Nuke, the team ultimately rendered the scenes through Arnold. In addition to incorporating Claymation-like shaders, the team also lent a tangibility to the ludicrous world by adding certain effects normally used when compositing CG elements into a live-action plate, like chro- matic aberrations, grain, and other artifacts – an approach that came, in part, from Smith's unique perspective as a 25-year veteran of live action. "We just wanted the audience to feel like they could reach out and touch the characters and the world," he says. Indeed, Storks delivers an impressive visual feat, a world rooted in a deep sense of reality, yet open to the most gloriously free-spirited animation, a place where Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner would feel right at home, yet a place real enough to make them finally consider that long overdue détente. ■ Martin McEachern (martinmceachern@hotmail.com) is an award-winning writer and contributing editor for CGW. THE CHARACTERS SPORT A RANGE OF HAIR, FUR, OR FEATHERS. THE HAIR ON THE HUMANS WAS STYLED WITH KAMI AND MAYA'S XGEN.