Recent advancements in technology
have allowed animators to push the limits of their work,
resulting in more creative and detailed
films and TV shows than ever before.
To find out how six of these stunning
and unique animations were created,
let's take a look behind the scenes.
Stop-motion-animated movies
have been around for over 100 years,
but the production house Laika Studios
brought this animation style into the 21st century
by utilizing 3D printing,
a technique that is especially prevalent
in their 2016 masterpiece,
"Kubo and the Two Strings."
Traditionally, stop-motion-animated characters
had to be made of a moldable material, such as clay,
so that the faces of the characters could be changed.
However, by using 3D-printed faces,
Laika Studios is able to alter the facial expressions
of its characters more quickly and consistently.
Each expression is created using 3D-modeling software.
The models are then printed with the 3D printer,
and magnets are added to the back of the face
so they can later be attached to the puppets.
There were approximately 48 million different combinations
of facial expressions created for
the film's main character, Kubo.
His face consists of a top
and bottom faceplate that combine.
The tiny seam between the two pieces
was painted out in postproduction.
Because there were so many faces,
each face had a code on the back of it
in order to keep all of them organized.
Advanced 3D-printing technology also allowed
"Kubo and the Two Strings"
to be able to create intricate puppets
that would be impossible to create otherwise,
such as the character called Moon Beast,
who was Laika's first completely 3D-printed character.
Moon Beast was made of 881
individual 3D-printed parts:
130 color parts and 751 components
for the armatures used in its body and legs.
"Loving Vincent" is the first feature-length animated film
in which every frame was hand painted using oil on canvas -
approximately 65,000 frames in total.
The film was painted in the style of Vincent van Gogh,
featuring 94 of the artist's original paintings
as the settings for the story.
In order to create the film,
the production team invented a special animation process.
First they filmed actors on a blue stage,
with background elements digitally added later.
Then one of the 125 highly skilled artists on the team
painted over each frame of this live-action footage
in the style of Van Gogh.
The paintings were then photographed and assembled
to complete the animation process.
The producers faced several challenges
in this ambitious project.
First, they had to change the color palette of
several of Van Gogh's paintings,
because while Van Gogh painted across all four seasons,
the film's plot takes place only in the summer.
Additionally, Van Gogh experimented with
several different styles throughout his life,
so characters had to be painted differently
based on which Van Gogh painting
was being used as the backdrop.
When the production team realized they needed
to hire more painters to finish the project on time,
they discovered that there literally weren't enough
trained painters available in Poland,
where the film was being made.
So they posted a job listing
and ended up hiring 45 oil painters from around the world,
sifting through 5,000 applications.
Given all of these factors,
it's no surprise that it took the team
about five years to complete the project.
The film's director said that they had
"without a doubt invented the slowest form
of filmmaking ever devised."
It took producers over a year to create
just 10 seconds of test animation footage
that they were happy with for
"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse."
The eye-grabbing animation style of the 2018 film
looks wildly different from typical animated movies,
and it borrows many of its innovative
animation techniques from comic books.
One of the most noticeable differences involves frame rate.
Animated films are typically 24 frames per second,
and creating a different image for each
frame is known as animating "on ones."
"Spider-Verse" broke the mold
and animated much of the movie "on twos,"
meaning that they kept some images on screen for two frames.
Each character's pose lasts longer
and is much more pronounced.
They alternated between on twos and on ones,
depending on the nature of the scene.
Another defining characteristic of the film
is that there isn't any motion blur,
a CGI trick that most new films use
to soften a movement and make it seem more real.
Instead, they used an old-school technique called a smear.
This was used a lot in early cartoons
to create the sense of motion.
If you look at a single frame,
you'll notice things like multiple limbs
to create the illusion of movement.
The producers also decided not to create
a traditional depth of field by using lens blurs
and instead utilized misprinting,
inspired by the common error in comic books
when ink is misaligned.
When something is in focus,
the colors align and are crisper,
while the colors of background objects are often offset.
The characters in Netflix's Oscar-nominated film
"Klaus" look three dimensional.
But unlike most animated movies these days,
the characters in "Klaus" aren't all CGI
and can't even be considered 3D.
The characters were first hand drawn, inked,
and painted using digital tablets.
Then the artists were able to paint with light,
thanks to software created specifically for "Klaus."
The second major feature that helped
bring the characters to life
and added to the 3D illusion was texturing.
With another piece of software
they used contour, lighting, and motion
to add surface qualities to specific parts of a character.
For example, the skin could appear smooth
while the clothing would be rougher.
In the end, the characters appeared much more 3D
and immersed in their environment,
as opposed to looking like stickers
on top of an elaborately painted background.
While the majority of the film followed this 2D process,
the animators did use 3D models
for some characters and objects
and combined the two styles seamlessly.
Even though these were created using CGI,
they were lit the same way as the 2D characters were.
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.
While audiences and critics were divided
on Disney's 2019 "Lion King" remake,
it's undeniable that the animation was a technical triumph,
as it's the most photorealistic
animated major motion picture to date.
One of the first steps in most animation films
is pre-visualization,
where an extremely low-resolution version
of the animation is created in order
to perfect character movements and camera angles.
However, "The Lion King" took a new approach to this phase,
creating simplified animated sequences
that could be viewed in virtual reality.
The director and production team
would then put on VR headsets,
which allowed them to actually step foot
in the virtual set that they had created.
This allowed them more freedom to explore each scene
and let them easily set up shots, adjust lighting,
and choreograph movements.
This digital environment helped them emulate
the nature-documentary aesthetic that they were aiming for.
The "Lion King" animation team also ran
into the unique challenge of having to make
the animals not only realistic,
but also able to sing and talk.
In order to pull this off,
they timed the characters' breathing to their dialogue
and would make the belly muscles and diaphragm tighten.
That way, it felt like the animals
were forcing air out of their mouths as they spoke.
Each layer of these animals also
went through a simulation pass,
an additional phase of animation where skin details
such as muscle ripples, skin wrinkles,
and fur interaction are all added.
Striking that balance between
staying true to the original film
and creating a hyperrealistically animated "Lion King"
for a new audience was a particularly tough challenge,
and it required 77 million hours of animation rendering.
The 2019 Amazon Prime series "Undone"
was created using rotoscoping,
the process of drawing animations
over live-action video footage.
Rotoscoping has been around since the early 1900s,
but the rotoscoping process for "Undone"
is so much more advanced
that it's practically unrecognizable from its predecessors.
The producers for "Undone" were originally
going to film the series using live action,
but they ultimately decided that using rotoscope animation
would give the series the surreal feeling
that it necessitated,
as the story revolves around a young woman
who has an unsteady grip on reality.
The scenes were initially shot
with actors and minimal sets,
using grids on set as reference points for the animators.
There was no need for green screen
because every area of the frames
would be painted over during the rotoscoping process.
The live action was then rotoscoped,
with animators drawing crisp lines over the footage.
The rotoscope animation was then sent to Amsterdam,
where artists would use oil-based paints
to add colors and shadows to the footage.
While many of the backgrounds were
painted in Amsterdam using oil on canvas,
some scenes required backgrounds that were
created using 3D-modeling software.
To maintain the uniform painted look,
the 3D-animation team would send a layout to the painters,
who would paint over the image.
After the painting was complete,
the 3D artists could then use the finished painting
as a reference for texturing the 3D environment.
What film do you think we should have included on the list?
What animated film would you like us to discuss next?
Let us know in the comments.