Two cats are better than one. All images TM & © 2006 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved. "GARFIELD" and GARFIELD Characters: TM & © Paws. All rights reserved. Not for sale or duplication. Courtesy of Rhthym & Hues.

The days of 150-shot vfx shows are long gone. Now it’s more like 1,000, and studios usually need to share the load.

Two women from two production companies in two countries oversaw a feature about two identical cats that couldn’t be more different. Betsy Paterson of Rhythm & Hues in Los Angeles and Charlene Eberle of Rainmaker in Vancouver took on the task of bringing a variety of talking animals to life. Together with animation supervisor/associate producer Chris Bailey, they created the four-footed cast for Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (opening today, June 16, 2006).

Paterson, an industry vet, has been at Rhythm & Hues for more than 10 years. Her tasks as vfx supervisor on the Garfield/Prince characters ran from bidding to deciding how to shoot the effects and working out details with the director and dp, tracking the animation, lighting and compositing, and checking the film dailies. “It’s very busy during post. Production is actually relaxing; long hours, but the prep for the film is where the action is.”

There was definitely action. Rhythm & Hues' scope of work consisted of 390 finalized shots featuring the 3D-animated Garfield and/or his alter ego, Prince, accomplished with a crew of approximately 280 people in the U.S. and India. Pre-production began in July ‘05 and ran through early November, and principal photography started in late August and wrapped in early November ’05 as well. Post ran from early November till May, a very short turn around. There were four sequence supervisors in animation and four in lighting / compositing. Paterson worked with the supervisors while each managed a team of approximately 20 people. There were roughly 50 animators and 35-40 tech animators, 40-50 trackers and about 30-40 each in lighting and compositing. Rhythm & Hues used their own proprietary softwares: Voodoo for animation and lighting, Wren for rendering and Icy for compositing. An improved lighting / compositing pipeline for Garfield enabled them to make adjustments to color and lighting without having to go through a time consuming re-render each time, and a 2D motion blur in the comp stage significantly reduced rendering time.

Bailey handled the dual role of animation supervisor/associate producer while dividing his time between Rainmaker and Rhythm & Hues. He worked closely with director Tim Hill, supervising and boarding the film much like an animated movie while Hill contributed gags and added business.

Bailey explains “I wanted to make Garfield cartoony while the technology could make him believable. Garfield is rather crass, where Prince is royalty, used to the finer things.” He also focused on the gait and posture. Garfield’s paws are further apart and his hips move side to side, where as the Prince’s moves are streamlined and his toes are closer together. Garfield holds his head lower and has the flat upper lids on his eyes, while the holds his nose a little higher showing a bit of arc to his brow.

Bringing together two identical cats and giving them their own personalities was one of biggest challenges. Courtesy of Rhythm & Hues.

The Dual Cat Challenge
Improvements were made to the original Garfield rig so that he moves more naturally in the second film, and on the muscle and skin interaction showing increased definition. Rigging has progressed to the point where you rarely need multiple models for a single character, even one that moves from four legs to two. There were, however, separate models for Garfield and Prince because of very slight differences between them.

“Garfield looks great when he is on four feet, but on two feet he looks a lot like a guy in a suit. It takes a great deal of sensitivity on the animator’s part to pull it off, and we had to beat on it till we could get it to work. Those are the toughest to do.”

Subtleties in individual personality need to be addressed as well, such as in a scene where Garfield is riding a skateboard. Garfield starts out with the feel of a cartoon human, but he ends up with the posture and attitude of a cat. Throughout, he has a human brain, with a thought process that takes him through being the cool cat / expert skateboarder to feeling dejected, back on all fours as a cat again.

A great deal of the film had the Prince discovering his “inner Garfield.” Bailey explained the difference between an external gag and an internal gag, as someone slipping on a banana peel as opposed to an internal gag that is subtler. “It’s like the Prince lounging on the bed after wolfing a full bowl of lasagna, staring at his bloated belly as if it’s a foreign object, tapping it to verify it’s real and seeing it jiggle like a water balloon.”