The one short Luckey singled out for inspiration was Red’s Dream, the story of a red unicycle that conjures a clown owner and juggling act. The mood of the water and the rain and the lonely little bike really caught his eye.

“In animation, I’ve always tried to do three-dimensional stuff. I’d be up all night with a magic marker and be out on the street and throwing up. I used to come to work around 6:30 in the morning and we’d be working on Toy Story. I’d go down the hall and see the frames as they were coming in. I first saw that scene where Woody’s in the crate and Buzz is tied to the rocket, and that rain is just dripping down. That was incredible.”

On Boundin’, Luckey suggested that the lighting is different. “It’s a more complicated lighting system. It has to do with ambience. The water people on Finding Nemo came in handy for the waterfall. The fish that are swimming around in the stream was used to good effect. And if you look at the lighting in the scene where the lamb is after the prairie dogs that have been giving him raspberries, and you turn around in the cubbyhole, the water is amazing with the ripples and pinpointing drips of water.”

The Montana landscape is a visual highlight of the film. © 2003 Pixar.

However, Docter maintained that the real achievement of Boundin’ is more artistic than technical. “The biggest success is that Bud and the animators were able to capture his drawings. It felt so fresh and simplified in a really appealing way. The animation is still complex — it’s organic and three-dimensional, but it’s nice and simple. Very refreshing.”

When asked why Luckey didn’t find the time to do any animating on Boundin’, he simply shrugged, “You know, I was going to do some animation. They put a whole system in my office, and I couldn’t even remember how to turn the damn thing on. The system had totally changed, and it would’ve taken me three months to learn how to do it. So I let more capable people animate it.”

And as far as the Pixar staffs of digital animators and the technicians, Luckey concluded, “I used to teach youngsters about numbers using animation; now I learn from youngsters about animating with numbers.”

Bill Desowitz is editor of VFXWorld.com.