Page 93 - 3D Artist 110 - 2017 UK

NO ROTOSCOPING

Jean-Pierre Bouchet reveals
Michael Dudok de Wit’s
one unbreakable rule in his
brief to the team as director

“Michael was a complete perfectionist,”
remembers jean-pierre Bouchet. “We
did ilm actors for the dificult scenes,
but only to study their movements and
things like the folds in their clothing.
rotoscoping was never allowed because
Michael wanted everyone to truly be
creative and explore without being
restricted to what rotoscoping was
telling them. He thought it made
animated work look too dead. We
started production by spending several
months drawing test shots on paper and
scanning it all in. We then waited about a
year to ensure the story was polished
before switching to doing most things
digitally using photoshop, tVpaint, 3ds
Max and fusion.”

03

01 “We paid a lot of attention to the shape of the
turtle’s shell to make sure that it would work from
every angle, and kept things as smooth as possible
with no bumps or wrinkles,” explains Bouchet
05 02 “In Fusion we adjusted the colour and the opacity of
the shadows according to the reference provided by
the art department, and used the particle system to
add a variety of effects,” tells Bouchet
03 To complete The Red Turtle, Dudok de Wit worked
with a small crew made up of artists from
established studio Prima Linea
04 Creating a realistic turtle character was aided
through rigging, which was used to stretch and
twist the shape according to the camera angle, thus
further synthesising a 2D look
05 For some scenes, like when the main 2D character
lifts up the 3D turtle, both 2D and 3D elements
were combined
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