AGI Studio 1: Week 4 Related Work

By Yee Hui Wong

Week Four

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)

‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn’ tells a story of the young journalist Tintin going on to an adventure with a drunk ship’s captain Haddock to discover the secret of the Unicorn.
This animated film is a beautiful adaptation of the legendary comic book series ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ by Belgian artist Herge. The team successfully transforms the 2D version of Tintin to a 3D Tintin without losing its touch. They use a more realistic approach for character design and environment design. The colour palette and lighting of the film are less saturated compared to a Disney or Pixar animated film. The team also shows that the animation medium could be used to tell an action-adventure and mystery-solving story as well.
This animated film is the first motion-captured animated film. It is also the first non-Pixar animated film to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It informs us of the potential of combining the motion-captured technique with 3D software to create an animation as its final product is so smooth and beautiful. The animated film also uses a lot of transition techniques, please check the VFX breakdown link below for more information.

the behind the scene using the motion-capture device: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OGWPtaUOok

You’re Welcome (From “Moana”)

’You’re Welcome’ is a song from Disney animated film ‘Moana’. It shows us the way demigod Maui lures Moana into a cave. In the process, he is using his tattoo as well as his action to tell his story.
This whole idea was based on an interesting Disney ‘what if’. The director John Musker asked that what if a particular tattoo was like his alter ego. Therefore, the team was challenged to bring a hand-drawn 2D character, which in this case an energetic tattoo, to a 3D CG Maui.
This animation clip combines the traditional hand-drawn animation with 3D computer animation. It challenged the Disney tech team to push its limit to map the 2D animation on the 3D CG modelling. Not only did it challenged the Disney tech team, but it also challenged the 2D and 3D animators in a new way. They had to agree on the timing of certain animation and the place of interaction for Maui and his tattoo to work smoothly. This shot shows us the potential of merging 2D into 3D by mapping them on top of modelling in the CG world.

About This Work