Shrek

Shrek

TECHNOLOGY In one film we feature what CG artists consider to be the "Holy Grails of CG Animation" -- creating realistic, believable human characters; rich, organic natural environments; mixtures of fluids (especially interacting with characters); clothing with detailed textures and movement; realistic hair, fur and fire. Realistic Humans -- Up until now, humans have not been the focus of an entire film due to their complexity. Creating realistic yet stylized human characters is one of the most important technical and artistic advances in Shrek. PDI created a complex facial animation system that encompassed everything from bone and muscle movement to the skin's natural reaction to light. Furthermore, each character's detailed expressions were produced with special tools called "Shapers," that enabled the animators to created extremely sophisticated facial movements using several interacting layers of bone, muscle, fat, skin and finally layers of clothing, hair and fur. Natural Environments -- Large-scale organic environments, all types of foliage have always been difficult in a believable way. A "digital greenhouse" was used to procedurally "grow" forests comprised of hundreds of trees with billions of leaves that are able to react to the slightest breeze. Clothing --It was a major challenge for the animators to create a variety of clothing that moved, wrinkled and reacted to light just like cloth would in real life. Detailed textures, from the flowing velvet of Fiona's dress and Farquaad's cape, to the rugged burlap of Shrek's tunic, were featured in every scene. Fire -- The story called for various types of Fire -- from torches and campfires to burning bridges and the Dragon's flaming breath. Instead of compositing live-action fire footage, the effects developers created motion simulation and shading techniques to render computer-generated fire befitting the "stylized realism" of the film. THE STORY:- Once upon a time in a far away...

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