One of the biggest animated challenges in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones was making an all CG Yoda for the entire film -- a first for the franchise. In Phantom Menace, he was only CG in two wide-angle shots of him walking. A combination of puppet and CGI was also considered, but after a successful test, George Lucas and his staff at Industrial Light & Magic decided to go all animated when they realized they could have a lot more control.

The CG version of Yoda allowed the animators to add depth and expression to his eyes. All images © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved. Digital work by Industrial Light & Magic.

From Puppet to CG
"We considered Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back and asked, 'What makes Yoda Yoda?'" explains Tim Harrington, senior computer graphics animator. "Frank Oz's puppetry, subtle nuances, the heavy eyelids over the pupils, how his ears jiggle. We were going after the essence of Oz."

Initially, the digital Yoda was greenlighted by animation tests done by Linda Bel, Hal Hickel and Kevin Martel. As production began, animation leads Linda Bel, Tim Harrington and Jamy Wheless supervised a team of over 10 animators to complete the Yoda shots.

Making Yoda a master swordsman was a challenge for the animators.

"We didn't want a little green man," Harrington adds. "But we didn't want him too perfect, so we dialed back a bit. Softimage is part of the pipeline for character animation, so we used SGI hardware. However, in mid-production, we used Linux machines, which are much faster than SGI 02s."

The technical directors matched the color and texture of the Phantom Menace puppet in creating the CG Yoda, which is much warmer than the blue and dark-looking one from Empire. At the same time, animators key-framed the character traits of the Yoda puppet from Empire Strikes Back into the digital Yoda. "We added more expressions to the eyebrows and the looks on his face," Harrington offers. "We had a lot more control over the eyes with the CG Yoda. More eye dart. His thoughts are more mischievous and intelligent to counter what he's saying. If you notice, puppets have a lack of focus in their eyes. It really improved the performance. His looks suggest a far more cunning character than is suggested when he speaks. That dichotomy comes through a lot more clearly than in Empire or Phantom Menace."

The digital progression of Yoda — from wireframe, to lo-resolution render to final composite.

THE Scene
Not surprisingly, most of the effort went into the battle with Count Dooku. Lucas presented an animatic of Yoda fighting with a light saber. "George was adamant that Yoda be a master swordsman," Harrington stresses. "The fan in us thought it was cool, but the artist in us became cynical. How do you pull this off and not have it look ridiculous? Does Yoda create multiples of himself? Does he fly? Does he use the Force? One of the ways to make it believable was to lead the audience on -- to show them that here comes something that you've never seen before. When he pulls out that light saber, it's a very dramatic entrance. George said it should be a showdown like in a Western, and then suggested, 'What if he pulls at his robe to reveal the light saber?' It was a technological nightmare. Cloth is so difficult.

"I animated Yoda pantomiming the movement where he grabs the robe. I figured out the exact frame he touches it with the technical animator and we tacked the cloth to Yoda's hand to give it that Western feel."