SIGGRAPH 2022 is well under way and we’re here in Vancouver to cover all the technological fun happening at the conference, and we’ve already been treated to a number of panels that go into the science behind the latest film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Encanto.
While we’re a few months away from the release of Strange World, the next motion picture from Walt Disney Animation Studios, much of the focus at SIGGRAPH 2022 from the studio has been on their recent release, Encanto. SIGGRAPH focuses on the science and technology that goes into computer animation and visual effects, so many of these panels are focused on the behind the scenes processes, thus making them a plethora of information for the technical side of the artform.
So far, we’ve already tackled quite a bit from Encanto, including the landmark musical number “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. In case you haven’t seen it yet, take a look below.
Interestingly, we learned that even though the song (music and lyrically) remained relatively unchanged during production – the actual sequence and performance changed quite drastically from concept to completion. But why? First of all, changes occur in animation throughout the process— but this one was a reason that I’d never heard or seen before, and it came from a video by choreographers Jamal Sims and Kai Martinez, who filmed a short clip to capture the idea and feelings behind the song for animators for reference.
Though it started as a reference piece, the production team was so impressed by how it was filmed, almost like a filmed recording of a Broadway musical, that they decided this sequence should play out as such. This means that two departments that don’t collaborate as heavily (Layout and Character Animation) needed to work in tandem almost hand-in-hand through every step of the process for the sequence.
Layout, who typically plans the character blocking and camera movement for a sequence, now was working with character animation who filled in the characters to add the different movements, essentially animating while blocking to get those camera moves to become absolute perfection. The choreography team even shot more of their own videos from all angles (sometimes wearing costume accessories) to aid the animation team in the sequence ensuring every foot is placed correctly, and every skirt twirl falls in just the right way.
While all that was taking place, creatively there were different decisions being made. A portion of the song once was to feature Bruno singing, dancing along with three human-sized rats (seen as three humans in the video above). While there is certainly a bit of magic, Encanto is mostly grounded in reality, and this was a bit outlandish even for the production team. The human-sized rats had to go, but rats are still featured in the song. The solution? Thanks to the new camera work coming into play, and a bit of magic from the lighting team, human-sized rats have now become human sized rat shadows.
And easily my favorite thing mentioned in this particular panel about the musical number, was that those rat shadows are actually 2-D hand drawn animation. Though it’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment in the film, lasting MAYBE three seconds, it’s the only hand-drawn animation featured in Encanto. Who animated it? Disney Animator Mark Henn. While you might not know his name, you certainly know his work. Responsible for Young Simba in The Lion King, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, and Jasmine in Aladdin, you’ve seen his art before. Not to mention you know, Mickey Mouse, as he appeared in The Prince and the Pauper, Get a Horse! And even World of Color – Celebrate! at Disney California Adventure.
Henn took the lightbox again (or maybe tablet, it wasn’t specified) to hand draw only those few seconds of animation in the sequence.
As everyone knows, the song ends with Mirabel assembling the broken shards of Bruno’s vision together like a jigsaw puzzle. Those visions – and even those shards – presented quite the puzzle of their own. Walt Disney Animation Studios had a presentation at SIGGRAPH 2022 solely to discuss how these props were made for the film.
Originally conceived and tested as a solid cube with the character model inside, the design team felt that it was too explainable. As in “Oh yeah, they just animated the character and put it in a glowing box.” Taking inspiration from holograms and old lenticular items, they developed a proof of concept using a portal shader that showed the glass shard as almost flat with a 3D Item inside that is actually three different character models layered. In the broken vision that shows off the destruction of the casita, there are even more layers to show off the home being destroyed. Of course this all happens so quickly in the film, it's the reason we have a pause button.
Used on Teleport Shader, developed for Incredibles 2 by Pixar, the team spent hours upon hours developing the look and the time consuming process behind it. That broken vision had 17 different pieces, and each of those 17 pieces would have to be formulated, animated, and rendered individually. Fortunately, the team was able to streamline the process, and we can all agree the end result is truly beautiful and one of the highlights of the film.
The glass vision also builds upon formulas and systems designed by Walt Disney Animation Studios that was previously used to develop and animate the Dragon Gem in the recent film, Raya and the Last Dragon.
Encanto has been the topic of choice from Walt Disney Animation Studios at this year’s SIGGRAPH conference, but they have also made subtle hints at the upcoming Strange World, Moana series coming to Disney+, and even acknowledged a 2023 feature that has yet to be announced. Plus, SIGGRAPH 2022 is taking place in Vancouver, BC, which is the new home to a second studio that Disney Animation has already announced, with the Moana project being among the first titles to come out of the studio. While SIGGRAPH focuses on the technical know-how behind the animated features we all love, we know more is on the horizon so stay tuned!
Encanto is now available on physical media for home collections and is also streaming on Disney+.