The skin, too, required coming up with pioneering technology. “We came up with a new technology called ‘subsurface scattering’which let us give more translucency to the skin,” says Bill Wise. “A lot of what your eye picks up as realism in people is the light transmitting through their skin. For example, you see light behind their ears when the sun is behind them. Another good illustration is the difference between white paint and milk; light just bounces off white paint, but it goes through and scatters around in milk, which is more like skin. This approach to lighting the skin was very effective and really kicks things up a notch. The characters start to feel alive.”
Meanwhile, with hairstyles ranging from Helen’s short, well-manicured coif to Violet’s long, free-flowing locks, new programs and approaches were also required to give the filmmakers what they wanted on top of the character’s heads. Mark Henne, the film’s hair and cloth simulation supervisor, guided the effort.
“The characters came into our department bald and naked— and they left with wardrobes and hair that would move in a realistic way,” Henne explains. “Hair in a CG film has always been tough because it’s so multi-layered and made up of millions of strands that have friction against each other and a sense of cohesion. It breaks apart and re-forms in response to how the head is moving and how the wind is blowing. The trouble comes from all the layers wanting to pass through each other and how you keep that from happening as it interacts with arms, shoulders and other solid objects.”
By far, the most difficult character to animate from a hair standpoint was Violet. She remained an “unsolved research project” well into the production of the film, due to her long, flowing hair—the bane of an animator’s existence. In fact, no one had ever animated this kind of hair before for a CG film. Henne and his team came up with five different sculpted hairstyles for Violet for the different phases of the film. Each of those styles could then be modified to reflect the various environmental conditions she encounters, including rain, wind and the zero gravity of her own force field.
Eventually, Violet’s hair became one of the film’s triumphs. “Violet’s character is all about the fact that she hides behind her long hair,” observes Sayre. “It’s such a crucial part of the character that we had to get it right. There may have been times when we wondered if it wouldn’t just be easier to give her short hair but she just had to have long hair and the result was wonderful—a significant advance in showing hair move in a believable manner while retaining its stylistic look.”
With their bodies honed nearer to animated perfection, it still remained for the characters of THE INCREDIBLES to “get dressed.” Even in regards to wardrobe, THE INCREDIBLES was infinitely more complicated than any animated film in history—and more akin to an epic costume drama. More than 150 distinct garments had to be specially designed and tailored to fit the lead and background characters. But Bird didn’t just want great looking clothes for his characters—he wanted clothes that would move like actual fabric.
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