Animating regions

Animators would block in Piper’s body to create the acting beat and pantomime, sculpting the model as needed. Then they’d load in the head feathers and wing feathers.

“When you think of Piper’s head feathers, think bed head, not peacock feathers,” Alan Barillaro says. “We varied his feathers in messiness and size. The minute one feather was similar to the one beside it, it looked computer generated. It took a lot of trial and error to get the right length, size and thickness. And then patterning required another level of iteration.”

Once the animators had the head and shoulder feathers locked down, they would animate the downy groom feathers. For these, they worked with regions that would eventually contain hundreds of feathers instanced during rendering from guide feathers within each volume.

“We started with only a few regions, but as we learned more about the anatomy, we split the bird’s body further,” Alan says. “It’s a little like a butcher’s chart. Left side, nape of the neck, back of the throat, and so forth. On the Presto screen, Piper’s body is overlaid with coloured, transparent spheres that represent each region. The spheres show the silhouette the downy feathers will create once rendered. Animators could shape these volumes, specify loft and lift within each, and control the timing. For example, using the sculpting tools, they could create an explosion of furry feathers out of Piper’s neck, or make him really puffy. Groomer Chuck Waite provided the feather styles for the feathers inside.