“Cartoony Fluid Animation”

The aim on CHICKEN LITTLE was to seek cartoon-like, caricatured style choices for how all of the elements should behave. Films such as ALICE IN WONDERLAND and PETER PAN served as inspiration since they, like most hand drawn animated features, employed animation styles which are at once both naive and very sophisticated. “Cartoon-y” animation is a constant challenge in 3D since cartoon-styled physics remain subjective. With this concern in mind, it helped to approach fluid animation in a similar manner to how one would animate splashes with pencil and paper; thinking less about the physics of fluid movement and more about creating stylistic shapes and behavior. Certain scenes, of course, required more generalized or detailed fluid behavior and dynamic simulation software (Realflow®) was employed for these scenes. But we’d realized early on that conventional particle systems would not easily give us the style nor timing needed for effective caricature.

Brendan Duncan Developed the PDB Ribbon DSO.
Cesar Velazquez Developed the PDB Instancing DSO.