“Deep Canvas in Disney’s Tarzan” by Walt Disney Animation Studios
Conference:
Title:
- Deep Canvas in Disney's Tarzan
Director(s):
Company / Institution / Agency:
- Walt Disney Animation Studios
Description:
For Tarzan, Walt Disney Feature Animation developed a process called Deep Canvas that enables traditionally trained artists to paint fully 3D paintings through which a camera can freely move.
In response to an unusually difficult problem (animating 10 minutes of painterly looking, densely lush jungle with a rela-tively small crew), the programming team wrote software to interpret, based on a 3D database, the intended location of each and every brushstroke in a painting, then actually repaint that painting over and over from various camera angles. As the scene progresses, more and more brushstrokes are added to fill in gaps from the previous frames. In this way, artists (with considerable help from a technical director) are able to use their artistic intuition to create entire 3D environments that can intercut seamlessly with the 2D world of the animated film.
This clip demonstrates how a portion of one of the scenes was painted and shows several of the most dramatic Deep Canvas scenes from the film.
Additional Contributors:
Director (Movie): Kevin Lima and Chris Buck
Director (Submission): Eric Daniels
Producer: Bonnie Arnold
Collaborators: Walt Disney Feature Animation Team
