Fantasia/2000: Blending
Art and Technology
(Continued from page 2)
We designed the key frames keeping in mind
that this method needed to blend with the traditional animation.
Once the key drawings were approved, they were then passed on to
the traditional background department.
After receiving final approval of the paintings, from our director
and the art director, this artwork was then scanned hi-res into
our CAPS system. Then the images were transferred over to our 3D
system and scene set-up was completed by one of our TDs. Morphtool,
which is a proprietary morphing software package developed in-house
at Walt Disney Feature Animation, was used to create the "animation"
of the paintings. The main advantage to using this software is better
animation timing controls and a very useful x-sheet editor.
The final animation was then transferred back into CAPS with the
images bound to the scene's digital x-sheet. The morphed ocean surface,
along with a 3D arc, live-action rain, a traditional background,
hand-drawn blowing spray and some lightning were then composited
together to create the final shot.
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The
beautiful "Firebird" sprite from Fantasia/2000.
© Disney Enterprises Inc.
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The Grand Finale
Several methods were used to create seamless 2D/3D effects for
"The Firebird." Most of the effects were created using
primarily the Houdini software package. Other 2D paint packages
including Photoshop, and Disney's proprietary drawtool and morphtool,
played a supportive role.
The 2D/3D mixture that created the sprite character was accomplished
by bringing scans of the 2D drawings of the sprite animation into
the computer, and then adding the particle effects of streaming
grass, pollen, flowers and magical dust. A 3D simplified version
of the sprite was built and hand-tracked frame by frame to match
the 2D animation. Particles were emitted along a flat plane in one
direction. Forces were added, and once the desired behavior was
achieved, a process called "creeping" was used to conform
the particle simulation to the shape of the 3D sprite, which gives
the impression of particles flowing down the contours of the sprite's
body. The 3D sprite was hidden before rendering so the particles
could be composited with the 2D sprite and create the final effect.
Every shot with particles contained tens of thousands of particles.
The final shot of the piece, in which the sprite dissipates, contains
over 1 million particles.
Several scenes contained growing plant life
from particles being dropped from the sprite. To achieve this effect,
particles being thrown from the sprite were programmed to detect
when they landed on the ground, which was a 3D grid modeled in the
computer to match the background paintings. Once one of the particles
connected with the ground, its program caused it to stop moving
and trigger a short "animation event" of a growing plant
in the exact spot the particle landed. Every particle would randomly
select from several animation events of different plants at different
growth speeds and colors which gave the impression of thousands
of different plants coming back to life over the landscape. These
animation events were traditionally animated and then painted by
our background department.
Finally, one of the great things about working on the Fantasia/2000
project was that we had the ability and resources to use existing
and custom software with traditional animation techniques in new
ways. One of our goals was to blur the lines between digitally and
traditionally created animation. When colleagues have trouble distinguishing
between the two techniques then I think we have successfully blended
art with technology!
I would like to thank my colleagues Uma Thumrugoti and Michael
Kaschalk for their input and comments on this article.
David Bossert was artistic coordinator and visual effects supervisor
on Fantasia/2000.
