Pixar Part 1 – Lecture by Jun Han Cho of Pixar
Starting off with a bang, SIGGRAPH had Pixar prepare an in depth presentation on the creation, the design and the technical issues during the production of their most recent film Ratatouille. Throughout their show I took some notes and gathered some information to pass along to the 3D community.
Pixar now undertook a new dimension to making a film and this dynamic was the food element. We have now introduced all the traditional elements such as modeling, shading, and lighting, but have also run into issues with liquids (soups), cutting of food, and the presentation of food as well.
As Pixar began production they decided to take a crack at creating a proprietary simulation for deforming items while preserving volume. This allowed for quicker and more accurate models. Unfortunately the tech did not prove successful to the point of use but will be used for future projects.
One problem they ran into was filling crates with food. They couldn’t just fill it with veggies because ithey didn’t integrate enough into each other to look realistic so simulations were required. This spawned the use of soft bodies to stack the veggies into the crate but it lacked interest and led to an idea to spruce it up. They decided to make the static results into a more dynamic solution by using the simulation with a destination shape. With this simulation only final adjustments were required for the final product to mimic the final desired results which was a crate of food in a specific shape.
In some situations more results were simulated then were required leading to a more expensive process. In many situations realism was changed to emphasize style like where the bell peppers were squishier then real life for a look closer to the desired result. After this process was completed it was much more efficient and effective to model the sequences via simulation to get the desired result. If hand placed food was used instead it would take much longer and not look as good.
For food presentation the use of simulation was also used to give food a sense of weight and overlapping of items with enough control to sustain the desired composition. While layering the simulations on multiple items of food they could all be compiled to get the final image.
Now that the food simulation was taken care of another element of food recreation was needed which was food waste. The food compost shots of decaying food and garbage needed to utilize rigid body simulations which was, like the soft body simulations, also taking advantage of layered simulations. Small chunks allowed less work and pulling back the skin and adding another helped in the creation of their compost piles of food.
Increased complexity meant more time which is why soft bodies had been ruled out for the compost shots. The exact mound shape was needed so prior to the simulations a mound would be created and flipped upside down. The simulation would be run inside the shape and as the items fell into the shell and settled. As the chunks were culled they were also tweaked and baked prior to flipping the mound back over. The mound now had the simulated food items as the model and texture giving it the final look for the mice to sit atop.
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