Where will they take us next? Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re looking at films that altered the 3D animation landscape.
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00:00 "Hello, check, that better? Great. Everybody hear me? Up on the shelf, can you hear me? Great!"
00:05 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're looking at films that altered the 3D animation landscape,
00:11 basing our picks mainly on the technical achievements that make these projects game changers.
00:15 "Congratulations, Oga. You've won the honor of embarking on a great and noble quest."
00:22 "Quest? I'm already on a quest!"
00:25 Number 10. Dinosaur. Disney's responsible for more classics than you can probably count.
00:31 However, its success was primarily attributed to traditional animation.
00:36 Excluding the agreement with Pixar, Dinosaur represented its first attempt at telling a
00:40 story with 3D visuals. "What are they?" "I don't know." It follows the titular creatures as they
00:47 look for a new place to call home. Although this form of animation is common now, Dinosaur was
00:52 remarkable at the time of its release. To make it realistic, the movie incorporated live-action
00:58 photography. These include backdrops like jungles, beaches, and deserts in several countries.
01:03 "There's our beautiful Florida sky. This is all Venezuela. This is a real background river.
01:09 We go over the cliff from Venezuela to Australia." The character models were created in separate
01:18 stages, split between designing their skeletal forms, facial animation, and skin texture.
01:23 Dinosaur wasn't the biggest hit, but it laid the foundation for Disney to innovate in the future.
01:29 "None of us really know what changes, big or small, lie ahead.
01:33 One thing is certain, our journey's not over." Number 9. Moana.
01:40 "I like to dance with the water, the undertow and the waves. The water is mischievous. Ha!
01:46 I like how it misbehaves." Among the first things that catches the eye in Moana are the glorious
01:51 waves. While DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt is remembered for the famous Red Sea sequence,
01:56 Moana upped the ante even further. Using a technique called "foundation effects" expanded
02:02 on its origins from Disney's Big Hero 6, the team injected new life into water animation.
02:07 "So we always want control. So we have to provide our artists in effects and lighting with many,
02:12 many levels of control so that we can balance out the colors, we can balance out the movement of the
02:17 water in a way that is going to give us the exact effect we're all looking for." The developers
02:22 wanted the ocean to have an identity of its own. Fluid simulation allowed it to bend into different
02:27 shapes and sizes without compromising on quality. The movement of the waves and the appearance of
02:32 the water are meant to complement Moana's journey. Years since its release, Moana remains lauded for
02:37 featuring a breathtaking 3D rendition of the ocean at such a large scale.
02:41 [Music]
02:52 Number 8. Finding Dory
02:55 "Remember it like it was yesterday. Of course I don't really remember yesterday all that well."
02:58 Pixar's Finding Nemo was a trailblazer for the way it animated the massive aquatic landscape.
03:04 Its sequel also carries creativity and innovation hand in hand. Since Dory, Nemo, and Marlin meet
03:10 several new friends along the way, there were fresh animation challenges. Characters like Hank
03:15 the Septuples took ages to get right. Hank's first scene actually took two years to perfect.
03:20 "To make an octopus move around and squish and squash yet make it specific enough that
03:26 animators can grab any part of him and move correctly. It's a problem of simplifying,
03:31 breaking it apart into individual pieces and putting it back together again."
03:34 The team made each tentacle as well-defined as possible. A big leap technologically compared
03:39 to the first movie. Furthermore, the RIS system allowed Finding Dory to have backgrounds rendered
03:44 to incorporate the tiniest of details. The movie is also notable for allowing low vision and blind
03:51 audiences to follow on-screen events through smart syncing audio narration, ensuring true inclusivity.
03:57 "Almost home, almost home, I'm almost home. I think I'm getting the hang of this."
04:06 "I hear footsteps." "Hank!"
04:11 Number 7. WALL-E. What do you do when a film's main characters barely speak? You let the scenery
04:18 do the talking. "Everything about that walk home for WALL-E is a very tightly choreographed
04:25 expositional journey to tell you what the state of the world is and what the state of the world
04:32 was." WALL-E communicates its primary plot within its opening minutes. We watch a lifeless,
04:37 barren land that is actually Earth. To give off a sense of scale while depicting WALL-E's loneliness,
04:43 a long lens was used. Even with its bleak tone, its dystopian backdrop dazzles in warm colors.
04:49 The film contrasts this with WALL-E's trip to space, where things come alive among a tapestry
04:54 of stars. More broadly, each robotic movement was carefully planned out, considering functionality
05:00 as well as emotion through animation. "I spent a lot of time thinking about WALL-E and how he might
05:05 compact garbage and the mechanisms and kind of the system that's involved with that whole routine."
05:12 WALL-E definitively proved that Pixar had the visual knack necessary to tell any kind of story.
05:17 "It's paid off bigger than I ever expected. I mean, I always have high expectations,
05:22 but it's exceeded that." Number 6. Zootopia. Animating anthropomorphic animals wasn't new
05:28 by the time Zootopia arrived, but the film perfected the formula to present us with an
05:33 awe-inspiring place to behold. It features a who's who of fauna from around the globe,
05:38 represented with unparalleled authenticity. "So fluffy." "Hey!" "Sheep never let me get this
05:45 close." "You can't just touch a sheep's wool." "It's like cotton candy." The production team
05:49 spent months researching animals, including how fur appears in different lighting. Using their
05:54 iGroom software, they produced over 2.5 million hair strands for Nick and Judy each. This attention
06:01 to detail is applied to all the other characters, too. "Developing a new shader that actually
06:06 describes fur in a really truly realistic way. And we did do a lot of research. We went to the
06:10 Natural History Museum so that we could actually look at fur up close with a microscope and look
06:16 at the structure of each individual animal, because they are very different." The various
06:20 locations in Zootopia, meanwhile, are incredibly detailed. It's no wonder Judy's train sequence
06:25 takes our breath away. Zootopia set a new benchmark for the genre, making us wish we,
06:31 too, could visit the titular place to experience all its glory. "Try everything."
06:35 "Try everything."
06:43 Number 5. The Lego Movie. Animation is difficult in general, but adapting Lego is a different
06:50 ballpark. "When you see a vista of thousands and thousands of buildings, those buildings are real
06:56 Lego buildings that haven't been cheated, they're made out of bricks." Directors Phil Lord and
07:00 Christopher Miller wanted the characters to mimic the movements found in stop-motion films.
07:04 The developers of The Lego Movie were up to the task, creating a Lego-filled world that
07:09 bursts with originality. "Our dream was that you would turn the movie off and then run home and
07:14 then build the most silly, ridiculous Lego thing you could." Although the animation is primarily
07:19 CGI, it's designed to replicate actual Lego. This means that everything from the characters to the
07:25 buildings and even water effects are animated like blocks. As a result, it's like a simulation
07:31 of everyone's childhood games brought to life. The Lego Movie's masterful art style contributed
07:36 to its success, achieving widespread critical acclaim and kick-starting an awesome franchise.
07:41 Number 4. Shrek. Despite parodying its tropes, Shrek provides one of the best representations
07:57 of a fairy tale world. With various magical creatures, Shrek's best friend Donkey and the
08:02 lovable ogre himself to animate, there was a lot to get right, and it was done in a way that felt
08:07 realistic. "There have been 100% animated, computed, graphic-generated films, but they haven't taken
08:15 human-like characters and sustained a story for a whole feature length." The character models were
08:21 built from scratch. The way their muscles move, their facial expressions, and their manner of
08:26 speech are all distinct. Separate renderings and lighting were used for aspects like Donkey's fur
08:32 and the grass in the environment. "Wanna help Shrek run into the woods and find me a blue flower
08:37 with red thorns?" "Blue flower, red thorns. Okay, I'm on it. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower,
08:41 red thorns." The animated landscape was still in its early stages during Shrek's production.
08:46 Thanks to the dedication displayed by Dreamworks, new doors were opened to refine the way characters
08:51 emote and how audiences perceive them. "I'm supposed to be beautiful."
08:58 "But you are beautiful." Number three, Tangled. Fun fact, Rapunzel's hair is 70 feet long,
09:05 comprised of over 100,000 strands. "That's a lot of hair." "She's growing it out." There was lots
09:12 of hype surrounding how the hair would be animated in Tangled, and boy did Disney deliver. The
09:17 primary goal was to fashion Rapunzel's locks to appear long, luscious, and fluid. Hair simulation
09:24 software achieved this. "What we would do in software is give them enough tools to be able to
09:29 blend in and blend out of what's hand animated and what's simulation." To create the broader world,
09:35 an innovative multi-rigging method was also used. Multiple virtual cameras were used to
09:41 shoot separate elements before they were all composited together. Of course, that's all
09:45 easier said than done. It notably took years to get the hair just right. But in the end,
09:50 we got a film that's a feast for the eyes and a genuine visual spectacle.
09:54 Number two, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse. Just when you think you've seen it all,
10:09 a film like this proves otherwise. Into the Spider-Verse signified the next revolution
10:14 in animation. "Bring the hand of the artist back, bring line drawings back into it,
10:18 basically bring more of the art back into it. So it's not just the computer, it's the hand of the
10:23 artist in there as well." With a blend of 2D and 3D visuals, every frame explodes with colors,
10:29 looking like the pages of a comic book in motion. The production team had immersion in mind,
10:34 using different frame rates per character based on their personality and fighting style.
10:39 2D emulated the aesthetic found in anime films, while 3D was used to make the animation look like
10:44 a living painting. "The number of things that they had to rig for each character was phenomenal,
10:50 but what we got out of it was a level of performance that's really incredibly nuanced
10:55 and beautiful." Fans and the animation industry were blown away by how incredible the film looked.
11:01 That best animated feature Oscar practically ensured that this art style would become the new
11:06 norm. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
11:17 Frozen - Here's an icy world that's dazzling to behold.
11:34 Elemental - A complex, detailed city that evokes a sense of wonder.
11:39 Puss in Boots - The Last Wish - It's like watching a storybook in real time.
12:03 Rango - The emotion capture technique turns live action into animation.
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12:39 Number 1. Toy Story - Pixar's debut feature took the boldest step possible and succeeded like none
12:46 other. As the first computer animated feature film ever, Toy Story wowed audiences.
12:52 "You think they've never seen a new toy before?" "Well sure, look at him. He's got more gadgets on
12:57 him than a Swiss Army knife." This was a movie that looked larger than life in the best way
13:02 possible. Director John Lasseter wanted it to look quote "organic," so traditional animation was out
13:08 of the question. By using 3D visuals, Toy Story showed the world from the toy's point of view.
13:13 It also offered the camera a freedom of movement that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
13:18 "Sheriff, I can see you're dwelling from here. You're almost home."
13:21 "Nirvana is coming. The mystic portal awaits." Finally, after thousands of hours of work and
13:26 over 100,000 frames, Pixar completed a timeless masterpiece. More importantly, it's responsible
13:32 for permanently shifting the scope of animation. The impact it's had can be felt to this day.
13:38 Which 3D animation flick do you think changed the game forever? Let us know in the comments.
13:50 "If you didn't know that before, I hope you do now."
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14:08 [Music]