“Doodle: A Modular Toolset for 2D Artistic Control in the 3D Effects of The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2” by Losure
Conference:
Type(s):
Title:
- Doodle: A Modular Toolset for 2D Artistic Control in the 3D Effects of The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2
Session/Category Title:
- Painting the Wild Robot
Presenter(s)/Author(s):
Moderator(s):
Abstract:
Recent films at DreamWorks Animation, such as The Wild Robot and The Bad Guys 2, have pursued ambitiously illustrative styles, requiring FX with an emphasis on painterly simplification and 2D inspired silhouette and timing, that also maintain a 3D sophistication of scale, detail and rendering. To meet the demanding hand-crafted art direction of these films, while contending with the challenges of 3D Lighting integration and ever-changing cameras in a 3D feature animation pipeline, we developed a suite of tools to let artists creatively mix simulation with drawing all from within a modern node-based FX software package. The collection of tools, called Doodle, enable artists to use traditional painting and sculpting techniques in 3D space, procedurally manipulate and simulate the resulting geometry, and compose these hand-drawn elements into reusable 3D sprites for aggregate effects.
References:
[1] Eszter Offertaler, Sondra Verlander, Baptiste Van Opstal, Jeff Mahovsky, Ashley Lee, and Jeff Budsberg. 2025. Creating a 2D Data Format Capable of Handling Complex Transparencies. Presented at SIGGRAPH 2025.
