Will traditional fans accept the more dimensional versions of Disney’s classic characters? All images © Disney.

You knew eventually that Mickey Mouse would take the computer-generated plunge into the world of 3D animation. But it couldn’t be timelier, what with the celebration of Mickey’s 75th anniversary currently in full swing.

It began last year with the opening of Mickey’s PhilharMagic at Walt Disney World in Orlando, providing a 3D glimpse of things to come. But the full 3D transformation occurs this holiday season with Twice Upon a Christmas, the DVD-premiere produced by DisneyToon Studios featuring five all-new episodes starring Mickey and his Disney pals.

In fact, the first all-CG Mickey movie might never have happened at this particular moment without the anniversary marketing push, since Twice Upon a Christmas was totally put together in 2D until one fateful moment in December 2002. “We had a screening — and it was a good screening,” recalled producer Pam Marsden (Dinosaur). “We were just getting ready to send it off to the 2D studios, and at that meeting, we said, ‘You know what, lets make it in CG.’ And so we got together with some sub-contractors [Blur Studio and Sparx], who were very industrious, and we all agreed to jump into CG at the last minute.”

Mind you, this was after Marsden and supervising director Matt O’Callaghan (the visual effects supervisor on Snow Dogs and 102 Dalmatians), who previously worked together in special projects at Disney, lobbied for just one CG segment as an experiment, since there was definite corporate curiosity about Mickey in CG. They even made a brief Mickey walking test that was circulated throughout Disney. However, they didn’t get the total CG greenlight until that December screening, upping the budget and significance of Twice Upon a Christmas.

Twice Upon a Christmas could be on a lot of kids’ holiday wish lists.

As a result, this historic CG adventure was split in half between Blur in Venice, California, and Sparx in Paris, France, in order to make the release date.

“We went crazy fast, just crazy fast,” Marsden added. “And what the studios have used is primarily off-the-shelf, but they all have special rigs and special software that have helped get this bigger project through the studio fast. And there are some new looks. I think that there’s some stuff that’s pretty fun. Donald loses his temper in a display window in a department store and it’s great looking because it’s all 3D backlit.”

As expected, the transition from 2D to 3D was quite a challenge, given the sensibility of the characters and the intuitive process that goes into line drawing that has to be dissected and translated scientifically into the 3D model. “For example, you would never draw Mickey when he turns his head,” Marsden continued. “His nose drops down and when you look at him sideways, he’s got his nose up. But if you looked at him like this, then his nose would be in front of his eyes. So when you draw him, you draw his nose coming down because his face is going to look more pleasing when you’re looking straight at him. That kind of software has to be rigged into a model and then it becomes sort of not intuitive but another step in making Mickey look on model.