How has Pixar evolved in the last 15 years?

The Andy in Toy Story 1, and the Andy in Toy Story 4. The new Andy has a smooth skin and movements, while the old Andy is robotic and wears a stiff shirt. Pixar has made significant advancements in animating humans and their clothing from their first film in 1995 to their latest release. They have perfected realistic movement for characters of all kinds, as seen in a shot from Pixar's Soul. Even though it's animated, the fingers floating from one key to another and the small details like tendons moving in the hand feel just as real as the reference footage that inspired it.

While Pixar has used reference footage since the beginning, they couldn't achieve the nuanced and realistic movement in scenes like this back in 1995 for Toy Story. It took years of technological breakthroughs to get where they are now. Pixar has an army of animators and riggers who have contributed to their progress. Let's go back 26 years ago to the technology built for Toy Story.

Getting a character to move starts in Pixar's rigging and modeling department. Before a character is rigged, it is in a neutral pose with no expression on the face and straight arms and legs. The rigging process adds controls that allow different parts of the body to move like a doll or puppet. For example, Woody's character model has a rig with various controls called animated variables or avars.

In the early version of Woody, there were 596 of these controls. However, in Toy Story 4, Woody had over seven thousand controls, allowing for more nuanced movements. Control points are often connected to each other, so moving one control point affects others. Pixar introduced Geppetto, later updated to Presto, which allowed animators to reuse and adapt rigs for multiple characters. This sped up the animation process and gave animators more control over movements and facial expressions.

The new software provided template rigs for different types of characters which could be altered as needed. For example, the sea lions in Finding Dory were constructed from dog rigs with legs folded into flippers. Geppetto also allowed for more expressive facial movements, as seen in Finding Nemo.

To express emotions, animators used reference footage. For characters like Marlin and Dory, who don't have eyebrows or eyelids, eyebrow-like lumps were added to convey human emotions. Connecting control points around the mouth, eyes, and cheeks made facial expressions more believable.

After making strides with toys and sea creatures, Pixar faced the daunting challenge of animating humans. Mr. Incredible, for example, had 426 primary controls, 111 secondary animation controls, and 1061 modeling controls. Reference footage and a new system called Goo were used to make his movements realistic. The rig included layers of muscles and skin that needed to respond realistically.

Goo allowed animators to see how the skin and muscles reacted in real time as they worked, making movements more flexible and natural. This led to breakthroughs in animating challenging body parts like shoulders. The rigs built for characters in The Incredibles were designed to allow them to stretch further than the average human. This was especially important for Elastigirl's transformations.

In conclusion, Pixar has come a long way since their first film. With advancements in rigging and modeling, the use of reference footage, and the development of new systems like Goo, they have achieved more realistic and nuanced character animations, including humans, over the years.