Although actors usually work individually on an animated film, their performances are entirely collaborative because they could not be completed without the artistry of the animators. “Basically, all animators are actors,” Adamson states. “The visual side of the performance comes from the animators, so they are responsible for bridging that gap between the actors’ vocal work and what appears on the screen.”
Raman Hui, Tim Cheung and James Baxter, the supervising animators on “Shrek 2,” studied the footage of the recording sessions to glean inspiration from the voice cast in animating their characters. Some of the animators even took acting classes in order to learn some of the same methods actors use to express emotions in their roles.
Over the past decade, 3D computer animation has gone from being a novelty to becoming the mainstream form of feature film animation. In turn, many traditional animators, including James Baxter, have traded in their pencils for a mouse. Baxter notes, “The main difference is that we are manipulating an already created model, so you don’t have the challenge of drawing one individual character from beginning to end. But in terms of performance and acting, we use the same skills as we did in 2D animation. The computer is really just another tool; it just happens not to be a pencil.”
Computers also make it possible to increase the cast many thousandfold, and with each new computer-animated film, these virtual “extras” become more sophisticated and more complex. In “Shrek 2,” the biggest crowd scene involved almost 6,000 of Far Far Away’s citizens, who have turned out to greet their returning princess and her husband.
As in “Shrek,” a digital dollhouse of men, women and children was rendered in the computer, beginning with generic versions of each. By varying elements such as the physiques, the hair and the clothing, the archetypes could be multiplied into a myriad of different figures. The animators could also choose from a library of actions, called cycles, to assign to different characters, including clapping, waving, walking, and so on.
What sets “Shrek 2’s” crowds apart is the development of the dynamic crowd character, or DCC, which has additional controls, allowing them to focus on and react to the action. As most effects are intended to be, the DCC system would be more conspicuous by its absence. A regular cycle would have all the crowd characters looking at the same point in space, which is unnatural. By adding a “look at” control, the animators can make the crowds appear actually to be watching the action from their individual vantage points. The crowds can even be made to split their points of interest, with some looking at Fiona, while the rest are watching Shrek.
Visual effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg explains, “We wanted the crowds to react dynamically to what’s going on in the scene. For instance, you could have a character walking along, and as Shrek goes by, he is startled. He needs to react to that—do a double take or turn his body and track along with Shrek. That is the main advantage of the dynamic crowd character.”
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