Portals in Incredibles 2: Product Case Study

Client: Pixar Animation Studio Role: Senior Technical Director, Portal Design and Product Manager Product: Incredibles 2

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OVERVIEW

The Voyd super powered character in Incredibles 2 presented a unique design challenge to the team at Pixar Animation Studios. The creative team of Director Brad Bird and Production Designer Ralph Eggleston had a rough concept, but nothing concrete enough to begin production with. Furthermore, there was little time given to consider non-traditional technical approaches to an unknown effect.

APPROACH

Using rapid prototyping with volunteers from the animation and layout department, I created a zero to one visual system layering complexity to create an optical illusion of chaotic rotation. To accomplish the portal holes, I partnered with a Global Technical Engineer, Tom Nettleship, to implement his theory about transported path traced rays, physically transporting the pixels of one space to another by moving rays of rendered elements.

RESULTS

Using a circular pipeline centered around the character and story, multiple departments were able to work through the production timeline while iterating visual and animated elements. Several changes were incorporated along the way, but were quickly adopted by each team resulting in a final visual product that exceeded expectations and finished below budget.

 
 

CONCEPTUAL DESIGN and objectives

Character and design tags from Director Brad Bird:

  • Unstable

  • Frenetic

  • Graphic

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VISUAL UNDERSTANDING

Studying 2D graphic elements that create 3D forms through visual perception.

 

VISUAL PROTOTYPING

Iterating velocity and noise patterns to match visual goals.

 

TECHNICAL DIRECTION

Understanding the physics behind bending the rules.

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The impossible became possible, but not without drawbacks. New visual effects evolved such as the “hall of mirrors effect,” but with that also came the possibility of infinite computational loops. Furthermore, as 2 portals became N portals, animation and layout had to be taught a new set of rules about what was technically possible. All with the understanding that any rules could be broken in name of story and character development.

 
 

INITIAL TESTING: Working with the TEAM

Layout:

  • Portals are not mirrors, they are windows.

  • Oblique angles need to be accounted for.

 

More Layout, Here and There:

  • Layout and animators had to begin thinking in two locations.

  • A multi-camera setup to approximate what would happen at render time.

 

Animation:

  • How do Portals open, close, appear, disappear?

  • How do objects accelerate and decelerate when gravity changes direction?

 

ARTISTIC DIRECTION

Visual Effects and Rendering:

  • How does lighting change from one environment to the next?

  • Do portals emit, distort, or capture light?

  • How much effects does angle, speed, size, and duration matter to the design?

  • How does speed and frequency effect all of the above and the perception of space?

 

Initial approvals were efficiently implemented, but offered new design challenges for the entire team. For every new iteration or feature, a new pipeline had to be created. And for every new feature, an older render function had to be accounted for. Standardized rendering optimizations have been coded to remove lists of what the camera cannot "see". We were adding to those lists daily.

 
 

Layering it all together

Each element was broken out to render layers, and then re-coded into shading language as to be rendered in one pass. Each layer was given select features to control at that time. This allowed for more complex lighting calculations, such as reflection and refraction, to be tweaked in real time.

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Design continuity of “Kids to the Rescue”:

 

Final Thoughts

As the schedule was ending, and as animation and the director became more familiar with Voyd, new chances were taken with timing delays and story beats. These decisions could have brought standard pipelines to a halt. However, because of the procedural nature of the elements and the agile nature of the build, changes were taken in stride and implemented quickly. All to the enjoyment of the team and the audience.