Opening day reception at ADAPT 2008.

With Pixar, everything starts with the story, which is developed in an "incubator room" where artists and writers can figure out the nuances of the story. The story department prepares development drawings that provide a first glimpse into what the characters might look like; these go through numerous changes. "Changes are made to serve the story," Makarewicz reiterated. The story is put onto storyboards and scrutinized. "We do everything on storyboards. We watch it play out like a comic book up on the screen. Ideas are pitched to the director. They may get done or they may be changed. There's iteration after iteration." As for design, the goal was to achieve "a machine quality first and add character later." "WALL·E is a square and Eve is a circle," noted Makarewicz. "We went through many iterations with Eve. We wanted her very sleek. Essentially, WALL·E is a garbage truck and Eve is an iPod." Research was also necessary but somewhat smelly. "For Finding Nemo we got to go into the water," Makarewicz said. "For WALL·E, we got to go to the dump." However, being able to see real-life trash cubes being stacked proved extremely valuable, as well as the study of decay.

In the end, WALL·E required130,000 frames rendered, 1,600 shots, 445 models, 41 sets and 80,000 storyboards and four years to make.

Bolt and Rhinopalooza
For Philippe Brochu, Clay Kaytis and Hidetaka Yosumi of Walt Disney Animation Studios, the challenges of its 3D CG feature Bolt meant creating a completely new working method. While Bolt, a dog, is the lead character, it was a hamster named Rhino that posed unique problems. "He had to work as a quadruped, he had to be able to stand up and act, he was a couch potato with a fat body and fur, and he exists in a hamster ball," Kaytis said.

"The first thing is to make the character look appealing," said Brochu. To hone in on the best designs, the team created something called "paloozas," which is a creative refining process that began with a successful "Boltapalooza" (for the dog) and progressed to "Mittenspalooza" (for the cat), "Pennypalooza" (for the human girl) and "Rhinopalooza" (for the hamster).

Philippe Brochu, Clay Kaytis and Hidetaka Yosumi of Walt Disney Animation Studios discussed how the challenges of its 3D CG feature Bolt meant creating a completely new working method. © Disney.

The team also underwent an enormous change in workflow. Instead of moving from modeling to rigging to animation, which would then go back and forth, and back and forth for approvals -- and could cause huge problems if a rigging change was required. "It was difficult in a really big place where everyone had specialized tasks," Brochu added. "We needed to change that. We did not have time for things to take days to get approved."

For Bolt, there was a formation of a character team that works interactively, starting with modeling and moving to rigging and then to animation, but proceeding back and forth in a fluid, circular motion. "There are no departments in character teams. We work collaboratively," Brochu added. It has proved so effective that the change in workflow is becoming a new standard at Disney.

As for Rhino, the animators turned to squirrel designs from the 1956 film Sleeping Beauty for inspiration. "They were stylized designs, but they were anatomically correct," commented Brochu. Rhino had to be re-rigged using a new PSD (pose shape deformer), and distance locators constantly needed to be adjusted. "There were too many in the neck, so we added locators in the arm," Kaytis said. The animators even added a "bonus" of "granny arms" or skin flaps to the character make the appearance and movement more realistic. For fat and fluffy Rhino, Kaytis said, "Fur was a miracle that covered up problems."

Building Iron Man
Marc Chu, animation supervisor, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), faced different obstacles to digitally dress the armor-clad Iron Man. Attendees at ADAPT were amazed to hear that famed ILM had to compete for the job of working on the film. "It happens a lot," Chu offered. "We have to do a test like other companies. The competition has really risen, and studios are getting savvy. They all want to see what you can do for the money."

To make the armor realistic, ILM had to conceive of where weapons might be placed and logical ways to access those weapons. They had reference in a suit created by Stan Winston, which showed how armor would react to movement. "During production, it was all about reference," Chu added. "We used 44,000 photos. It was a non-stop process to find anything we might need to create the suit in CG."