Navigating Polynesia
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Navigating Polynesia ©2016 Disney TO DEPICT MOANA’S STUNNING SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS, OCEANS, AND CULTURE, DISNEY ARTISTS DOUBLE THE VISUAL EFFECTS WORK IN PREVIOUS ANIMATED FEATURES BY BARBARA ROBERTSON ith a nod to Disney’s legacy “We had our third internal screening while 2,000 years ago, it started up again. No one and a high dive into the the movie was still evolving,” Driskill says. “We knows why. So, we came up with a theory, future, the legendary were still a year and three months from being which is the basis for our movie. What if animation studio releases done, still early in preproduction and plan- one young girl was responsible for bringing its latest CGI feature to mounting critical ning. After the screening John said, ‘Moana navigation back?” acclaim. Set in the lush South Pacific islands makes Big Hero 6 look like a one-man show.’ Moana is 16 years old, the daughter of a and immersed in Polynesian culture, the “It was the biggest, most ambitious thing chief who had one rule: No one goes beyond musical adventure sends Disney’s most we’ve ever done on every front,” Driskill con- the reef. But her grandmother, a storyteller, unusual, daring, and vibrant princess on a tinues. “But, we felt like we owed it to this connects her to the legacy of voyaging. heroic journey. As Moana sets sail in the movie. People were so excited that we were Hawaiian singer/actor Auli’i Cravalho, also warm Pacific waters on her village-saving tackling this mythology and this culture, so a teenager, voices Moana; Rachel House voyage, she leaves behind her family, a we pushed hard. A lot of the challenges were voices Gramma Tala. mysteriously landlocked population, and an ones we put on ourselves.” “Moana has inner conflict,” Clements island under threat. Directors Ron Clements and John Musker, says. “She doesn’t know who she is. Her On her journey, Moana meets the demi- who had co-directed Aladdin, The Princess grandmother leads her to a secret cave god Maui, whose actions have led to the and the Frog, and Treasure Planet, and Produc- where she will understand why she has been island’s condition, the ridiculous yet dan- er Osnat Shurer (Arthur Christmas, “Lifted,” drawn to the ocean all her life. So, Moana gerous coconut-coated Kakamora pirates, “One Man Band”) emphasize the impact of and what may be the dumbest character the lobster-like Tamatoa, and a demonic the location and the people on the develop- ever, this stupid chicken HeiHei, take off on volcano named Te Kā. Her companion is a ment of Moana. a voyage.” dumb chicken, HeiHei. Moana’s puppy-like “Our visits to Polynesia changed the HeiHei provides comic relief for what small pig named Pua waits at home. vision of what this movie could be,” Shurer becomes a quirky and dangerous journey. Most of the second act takes place on the says. “We came back with beautiful Moana’s goal is to return the “Heart of Te water, with the characters in and out of the images – we all know how beautiful it is. Fiti,” a powerful ancient jade-like stone, water, which is one reason why Technical But, we couldn’t imagine the beauty of the stolen and then lost by the demigod Maui, Supervisor Hank Driskill states that this film people. When we listened to the people, to its origin. has the most effects of any Disney animation. that’s when we touched the beauty of the “So Moana convinces this reluctant demi- “The average movie we do has effects in Pacific Islands. It changed the story, and god Maui [Dwayne Johnson] to join her on 40 to 50 percent of the shots,” Driskill says, it changed us. We met archaeologists, the quest,” Clements says. “Others are after noting that action-packed Big Hero 6 had weavers…many people. We learned that this Heart of Te Fiti, so they encounter many effects in just shy of half the shots. Moana“ the ocean unites the islands; it doesn’t obstacles. We let our imagination run free had effects in over 80 percent of the movie.” divide them. We created an Oceanic story without realizing how difficult that could be.” Driskill and Visual Effects Supervisor Kyle tribe that we checked in with on story and Adds Musker, “We had to make a ship Odermatt had held identical roles as tech- design choices.” move convincingly at sea and make an nical supervisor and visual effects super- During those research trips, the team ocean have character. We didn’t know how visor on Big Hero 6, and had barely caught learned the importance of navigation to the to do that in a production-friendly way. But their breath when they started supervising Pacific Islanders, and uncovered a mystery, a the team didn’t ask us to inhibit.” effects forMoana . Driskill’s favorite anecdote mystery that led to Moana’s story. Odermatt gives an example of the kinds from those early days centers on a reaction “About 3,000 years ago, everything of effects demanded by a shot that in any by Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter after stopped,” Musker says. “All voyaging other film would be considered undemand- a screening. stopped, and everyone stayed put. About ing for the effects team. NOVEMBER. DECEMBER 2016 CGW 9 COMPLEX VEGETATION, WATER, LONG HAIR, AND MULTI-LAYERED COSTUMES REQUIRED MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PROCESSING TIME. “It’s a two-character shot of Moana and To develop the characters’ hairstyles, look with forces to get ‘Disney hair,’” Thyng says. Maui on the boat, seemingly an acting shot,” development artists (rather than model- “Generally, the hair wants to pull back to its he says. “But we talked about how we could ers) using Tonic would place tubes on a rest shape. Before, we had constraints that execute the effects in that shot for a half character’s head and specify parameters. held the hair in place. That was good for art an hour. Because of where they are, it was Based on those parameters, XGen, a geome- direction, but the hair pulled back in an un- complex. We start with them dry, and then try instancer developed at Disney and now natural way. Now, the hair can move freely. they get wet. They’re on a boat. They’re next available as a plug-in to Autodesk’s Maya, If there is a lot of action, it doesn’t always to water. They interact with the water.” would populate the border of each tube, a come back to the initial groom. It can be In addition to various forms of water, shell of curves, with thousands of primitives. held in a messy kind of look in a pretty good Driskill lists hair, cloth, feathers, vegeta- “The tubes give us a quick visualization way. That was a big deal.” tion, environmental effects like footsteps and were good for authoring,” says Simula- For example, when Moana bends down, in sand, smoke effects, fire, and lava as tion Supervisor Marc Thyng. “But they have her hair falls forward. Then when she stands, the main challenges. Head of Effects drawbacks. We had so much volume, we it comes back to a pleasing new shape and Marlon West adds magical elements to started using a new object type in Maya to stays in that shape. the list. handle lots of curves.” Also providing challenges for the simu- “Everything we would have asked them to As for the simulation engine that drives lation artists was that Auli’i Cravalho, the avoid was added to the story, and we had to the movement of the hair, the team devel- teenage actor who voiced Moana, fiddles tackle it,” Odermatt says. oped a new system based on what they call with her hair, and the animators wanted “Disney elastic rods.” Moana to do that, as well. HAIR Thyng explains: “It was important for the For example, “We wanted Moana to be curls to hold their twist and have springi- able to take the hair from one side of her Both hero characters have long, curly hair ness. For Rapunzel, we had used a mass head, pull it over to the other side, and have that’s often wet, underwater, or blown about spring model. For this film, we started with a it land in position,” Thyng says. “We needed by the wind. And, the teenager Moana plays discrete elastic rod model to do twists. Our constraints to control the strength of the with her hair. Artists used an evolution of the smart guys here found ways to speed up the forces through timing and distance. So, we proprietary software Tonic, developed for simulations so we could do fast iterations.” revamped our collision model and came up Tangled, to specify an initial groom, and the With simulations taking as little as 10 with new dynamic constraints.” simulation team developed a new system seconds per frame, the artists could show And now Moana can even slide her hair for controlling the hair. the supervisors and directors results quickly through her fingers. “We needed more control,” Driskill says. and use notes in the form of “draw-overs” to To make it easier for others in the pipeline “So we started on a big project and took it make changes. to control the characters’ hair, the simula- further than we thought we would.” “We’re using real physics, but we cheat tion department provided a general setting 10 CGW NOVEMBER. DECEMBER 2016 for collisions with the hair in various condi- “We broke the hawk’s feathers into types react to wind speed as the artists dialed in tions – wind, underwater, wet, and so forth.