when the animation process for Netflix's
klaus began it looked something like
this
it eventually started looking like a
pretty impressive 2d film but then the
animators went one step further to
create a film that looked like this
suddenly the characters looked
three-dimensional but unlike most
animated movies these days the
characters and Klaus aren't CGI and
can't even be considered 3d it's all
just a trick of the light
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about 300 people including 40 animators
worked on the movie Klaus which took
over two years to make and it was
completed under the wire just one month
before it premiered on Netflix so why
did it take so many people and so much
time to understand we have to go back to
2010 long before Klaus was nominated for
an Academy Award
so when director Sergio Pablos came up
with the idea because his story was
about the origin of Santa Claus it
appealed to nostalgia and he thought a
nostalgic 2d animation style like we saw
in the nineties Disney films would be a
better fit for the story but he also
wanted to advance the look so his team
at SVA Studios in Madrid added a few new
crucial steps to the animation process I
never looked at when he had an illusion
of today I looked at it as split like
there's a new way of making animation
now first they storyboarded the script
and made a cut using temporary voices
for the characters they swapped these
out later once the real cast was
recorded the next step was lay out where
the team designed backgrounds and
figured out the placement of the cameras
animating the characters and coloring
the backgrounds happened simultaneously
the end goal was to have both blend
together seamlessly and look like
they're part of the same world the
characters were all hand-drawn using
digital tablets and a program called
harmony by Toon Boom the animators used
live-action reference videos of
themselves as a guide the initial
sketches were very rough as you can see
here but there was a cleanup stage in
which artists were fine the drawings
with crisp bold lines then they painted
the characters with basic flat colors
here everything still looks very 2d but
they will soon bring the characters to
life with a very important addition
usually reserved for 3d animation
lighting his team tested out a new
method of lighting 2d characters and
released a 2 minute 30 second long
proof-of-concept teaser back in 2015 the
proof-of-concept looked good and secured
them and deal with Netflix but the
process was too labor-intensive so they
partnered with a French company called
life
the Poisson Rouge to help advance the
technology which they called class short
for Klaus light and shadow Poisson Rouge
was able to make the tool much more
efficient and easier for the artists to
work with the class 2 will allow the
artists to paint with light using a
number of different types of lighting
and various combinations like key light
and ambient light with 3d CGI light is
added automatically to objects but it's
trickier with 2d but weed aligns with
drawings the computer used a certain
level of AI to even understand that
these line corresponds this line this
hand is also this and the software
tracks movement of the characters so the
light and shadows will move with it the
program takes a very educated guess but
it's not a hundred percent accurate so
the artists can go in and fine-tune it
by hand painting with light allowed the
artists to get creative with details
down to the tiniest reflections in their
eyes as you can see here the team used
lighting not only to make the characters
feel more real but also to help tell the
story for example when Jesper is handing
out papers to the kids like a drug
dealer he's always standing in the dark
to illustrate his shady behavior and
when he's exposed at the end of the film
by his father he's the only one standing
in the light while the others are in the
dark inspiration for detailed lighting
techniques came from movies and TV shows
like using just a sliver of light to
illuminate a character similar to this
scene in Apocalypse Now and this scene
when Jesper confronts the bully was
inspired by Breaking Bad it's important
that the backgrounds also look
three-dimensional and follow the same
lighting pattern as the characters so
they used color keys as a guide their
quick doodles you know they they they
don't have a lot of detail but they tell
you exactly what the light direction is
and the house can affect both characters
and backgrounds for example this color
key shows how Jesper and alpha will be
backlit by the Sun coming through the
window and this one shows a progression
of how the light will change on Alva as
she steps towards Jesper to make the
backgrounds pop and appear 3d like the
characters the animators use several
different techniques such as multi
planes where you have layers on top of
layers to give the illusion
of depth the team created a total of
3000 160 scenic layouts for the movie
after they merged the characters with
the backgrounds they used the second
major step that really gave the 3d
characters that intricate detail to
bring them to life texture with another
tracking tool they used contour lighting
and motion to add various effects to
specific parts of a character so now you
could say well I don't want to low the
roughness on this game but I wanted the
code to feel rougher for example they
can make them look like an oil painting
or a watercolor these textures are
subtle but if you look closely you can
notice the difference in the end the
characters looked much more 3d and like
a part of their environment as opposed
to looking like stickers on top of an
elaborate painting and that's what
throws people off when they say this is
3d because I can get to volume when it's
moving and texture but it's really a
combination of the light and the texture
that makes that illusion the final stage
is final composition in which any
last-minute details are added to the
image like particles while the majority
of the film followed the 2d process the
animators did use 3d models for some
characters and objects and combine the
two seamlessly and even though these
were created using CGI they were lit the
same way as the 2d characters work by
hand there's things that benefit from
being drawn because they feel organic
and there's you know things are not
supposed to look organic there's things
that supposed to look solid like wagons
and doors and props and it's really hard
to make him feel consistent and solid
through drawing if you look closely
Jasper's wagon is 3d and so are some of
the reindeer
whenever the Rangers had to do something
was particularly challenging for free to
look right with it 2d we just animate
the reindeers in in 2d and sometimes we
would animate one render in 2d and the
rest in the wantonness shown in 3d
scenes like this chase scene at the end
of the film so seamlessly combined 2d
and 3d elements that it can be difficult
to tell which is which
there was a shot or just reliefs of
plate cover at one point
and I commented on how good integration
of that 3d played chrome cover looked
with the 2d character and they said oh
no that's actually 2d we just painted to
look like metal
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