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e d i t i o n 1 , 2 0 1 8 | c g w 3 1 along the surface or where the anima- tors needed more underlying control. "They are independent of the underlying joint structure and ride more along the surface," says Carroll. "You can control the falloff of the individual rivets, and we used that to control the silhouette, which helped shape the character." As Carroll points out, Ferdinand is a very different movie in terms of its animation than Rio or Ice Age. Whereas those two fea- tures were fun with a lot of zany movement, Ferdinand is more dramatic, with more gen- uine and heartfelt moments. "A lot of that came down to hitting those iconic poses and getting his expressions and emotions to read well," he says. That was made all the more difficult because Ferdinand is all black, with no markings or costumes. "I wanted him to look like this black stallion and have that richness and beauty," Saldanha says. Ferdinand does have two tan areas around his eyes, which had to mimic the character's eye and brow shapes to help in the emotive process. "Valiente is appeal- ing too, but in a villain-ish sort of way. For instance, his brows have an angry design," says Carroll. "You can give these bulls de- sign and animation contrast, but it still has to work within the world of the film. It's a balancing act." As Carroll notes, it was important for Ferdinand to be appealing and a charac- ter audiences could root for. To boost the bull's level of appeal, the animators did 2D draw-overs on the 3D models using TVPaint Developpement's TVPaint so- ware in an attempt to maximize his appeal and convey the emotion that Saldanha wanted. Then they would use those 2D draw-overs as a guide, and manipulate the rig controls to hit the poses. SEEING THE LIGHT Whereas the animation was based more on aesthetic and performance, lighting and texturing was more about technology. The problem was with Ferdinand's color. "It's hard to keep the consistent look of a black bull, especially within the sunny fields and even the marketplace," says Jeeyun Sung, lighting supervisor. "We had to keep the balance of the dark value to maintain Ferdinand's hero look." This is also the first time one of Blue Sky's main characters did not have sim- ulated hair. Instead, the shading depart- ment created Ferdinand's body material, which resembles textured fur. Initially the group tried using fur, but it did not give them the look they wanted. Instead, they developed a material that simulates short hair but enables them to generate lighting that gives the sheen and lightness they needed for the character to stand out in the scenes. This was done using the stu- dio's proprietary renderer, CGI Studio. "We had to be careful how much specular light we threw on the body so he didn't look too sweaty and waxy, but we also had to preserve some textures on his body so he didn't look too soft or plastic-like," says Sung. The texturing was generated using dif- ferent procedural processes, including a layer that mimics the muscle structure of the body so it has some volume built into it. Thus, when a light is shot from some of the angles with extra rim light from the backside, it reveals the structure of the muscle. Although it is still related to the deformation that animation was using, it also helped with the material procedural process applied to the body, notes Sung. Because CGI Studio is a raytracer, it is especially adept at capturing the way lighting bounces from surfaces, mimicking reality. "Ferdinand is the first movie where we used the radiosity function of our ren- derer on every single shot. It is a big mo- ment for us," says Sung. "It costs a little more for the rendering aspect because it is accurately percolating where we placed the lights. But when we started using the radiosity on the entire set, we could focus more on set-based lighting rather than shot-based lighting, so the consistency was a huge help. It was expensive initially but saved us as time went on." For instance, setting the global lighting with the radiosity helped the team main- tain the consistency of colors and value on sets, so when many lighters work on their individual shot, it was easier to maintain the continuity. TRAVELING THROUGH SPAIN Like the bulls on the ranch, anything that opposes Ferdinand is more angular and vertical, including the man-made struc- tures, says Production Designer Thomas Cardone. The same is true for his adversary, the matador. The humans in the film are