Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/863766
32 cgw j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 7 F E A T U R E Despite the new main characters, both Lemmon and Barrett point to Caesar as still being the most challenging character in terms of the facial animation. "There is something about the openness and the simplicity of Caesar's face that can make it more challenging to get readable, pleasing performances than with Winter or Bad Ape," says Barrett. "The cragginess and detail in their faces make it almost easier. But with Caesar, there is almost no place to hide. Yeah, it was Caesar once again." Furthermore, Caesar speaks more in this movie, requiring the lip sync and articulation of the phonemes to be believable yet still resemble an animal rather than a human. Articulation was a concern for the old, gentle, wise yet naïve Bad Ape, as well. He speaks a lot in the film, and does so quickly while using his eyes to express himself. In early tests, he appeared too articulate. Even though his mouth would hit the same shapes that Zahn's mouth hit, the chimp- like character's muzzle was quite large so it appeared as if he was talking too fast or the movements were too large. The animators had to figure out how far to push him and where to dial it back. "Most of our other key characters we already knew. But we had to make sure the new characters were brought up to a level so they could perform toe-to-toe with some- one like Caesar," says Lemmon. Animation Improvements The story point that these apes have become more evolved, more bipedal, made animation somewhat easier. As Barrett notes, for new actors, it is easier to learn to mimic bipedal versus quadrupedal motion. Thus, the animators had less tweaking to do on the overall mocap data, even for the battle scenes, which required some of the more physically powerful movements from the apes. "The animators would do more keyfram- ing, but across the board, we were able to keep more of the mocap," says Barrett. "Our on-set motion-capture team did an amaz- ing job." This despite the extreme "elemen- tal" conditions on set: rain, wind, and snow. Also, the team introduced NaturalMotion's Euphoria physics animation engine, typically used in video games, into the pipeline. As Lemmon points out, it's difficult to make a body physically dynamic while fighting against a fall. Weta does a lot of motion capture and stunt work to get believable movements and falls, but the data has to be edited to fit the terrain or context where it will be used. "Euphoria does a great job of combining motivated character motion with physical dynamics," says Lemmon. "Through skillful use of the tool, animators could create mo- tion that was believable and hit story points but was directable and also felt totally dynamic and physically accurate." The soware proved useful not just during a fall, but aerward as well, as an injured ape struggled to stand up, for instance. Weta also looked to improve on the horses, adding far more detail to the digital cavalry, which included quarter horses, Friesians, and Andalusians. Then they were groomed with millions of very short hairs, making their pelts more realistic than they were in Dawn. The animators further improved the dynamic muscle system. "The horses are so lean, you see their muscles jiggling and mov- ing even as they are walking gently down a path," says Lemmon. The real horses used on set proved to be excellent reference. Approximately half the horses in War are from a plate, while the rest are CG. "In some instances, we are handing off from real horses to CG horses, and vice versa, so ours needed to look and perform like the real ones," says Lemmon. "They had to be perfect matches." To animate the CG horses, Weta used an extensive library of animations when possible, otherwise the movement was keyframed. For this film, the team was determined to achieve more intuitive dynamics for the apes on horseback. In Dawn, crews captured THE STRUCTURE OF BAD APE'S FACE MADE ARTICULATION A CHALLENGE.