the pixar pipeline
TRANSCRIPT
The Pixar PipelineThe incredible yet unnoticed happenings
“It takes a tremendous amount of effort to make something look effortless”
Story & Art- Initial concept art to convey idea
- Plot, pacing, shot angles all fine tuned at this stage
- All rough sketches with voice overs
Modeling- Make sculptures (maquettes) to get feel for characters
- Scan a neutral posed sculpture to convert to 3D model
- Turn model into meshes for usability
Rigging- Create a virtual bones + joints structure for a model
- Allow animators to pose character with simple controls
- Modeling + rigging takes up to 1 year per main character!
Surfaces- Apply colors, textures, reflectiveness, sparkly-ness, etc
Sets- Build out the virtual environments for the scenes
Cameras- Point imaginary cameras within the scenes
- Replicate real world cameras - angles, focus, etc
Animation- Using the rigs, move the characters within the scenes to bring them to life
Simulation- Animate the things that would be hard to do by hand with programming
- Grass in A Bug’s Life, crowds in Cars, hair in Brave, garbage in Toy Story 3
Lighting- Apply imaginary light sources within the scenes
- In Inside Out, Joy is made up of particles, each of which is a light source!
Last Step- ??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
- Profit
“It’s the small details that the audience isn’t consciously aware of that sell the
believability”