The stop motion animation and VFX tech used on Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. An excerpt from issue #25 of befores & afters print magazine.In A Grand Day Out, released in 1989, director Nick Park introduced us to Wallace and Gromit. The beloved human and dog characters were animated in clay. Decades later, and on the Aardman film Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (which Park directed with Merlin Crossingham), the characters are still brought to life in clay.However, several other aspects of the film now relied on some of the latest 3D printing, camera and lighting, and visual effects technologies. Here, Aardman supervising animator and stop motion lead Will Becher shares with befores & afters the range of old and new tech used to make the film.b&a: The way you made this film seems to incorporate so many old-school pieces of animation technology, and the latest tech, too.Will Becher: Yeah, I mean, it is a theme in the film as wellthe old-school and new-school tech. What weve found on every project is theres always another version. So were always getting the newest cameras and were always updating the software that we use. But in terms of model making and the art department, 3D printings become a really big part of it because its fantastic for sort of micro-engineering and testing things.In the film, we have the Norbot gnome character. We still start with a clay sculpt and then we can scan that sculpt in and we can build the internal mechanism design to the millimeter on computer using a 3D model. Engineering elements that sit together in a very small space takes a long time and lots of filing and fiddling. With Norbot, we had a 3D printed head, and we 3D printed the mechanics inside the head. So the mouth and the way it moves, its all 3D printed, it slots together.In terms of animation, the process is very similar to how it was when Nick Park started. Were still using the process of physically animating and moving characters frame by frame. The advancements really come with the world around them. So, making the film feel bigger using set extensions or digital matte paintings for the skies.b&a: Nortbot was 3D printed, in part, but did you consider animating him with replacement animation?Will Becher: No, the reason we used 3D printing was to make sure we could make him as something solid. We could have used it for replacement animation. In fact, we thought about it, When he walks, when he marches, would it be better to print? But actually, funnily enough, because everything is so organic in the world, the floor of the sets, its not perfectly flat. So as soon as you have anything like that, you actually need articulation. So Norbot is printed in his head, but the rest of him, although some of the internal mechanisms are printed, he has a skeleton inside and he has silicon dressing on top. And all the animators then, they manipulate him by hand, they move him around.Hes just a good example of a very small version of a very well articulated puppet. So he could do a lot more than you see in the film. Hes got the most complicated sort of skeleton, really, because he has to be quite versatile. And the one puppet we make has to work for every shot in the film.b&a: Theres an army of Norbots that appear. How did you approach doing so many?Will Becher: We have PPMs for every sequence, and we spent a bit of time talking about, Okay, how are we going to do it? Were going to shoot separate plates for each one, but weve got to get them to look the same. And as soon as we said we want them to be exactly the same, the way they move, because theyre an army Thats the other thing, stop motion is organic. You cant repeat it because you are physically moving things in space, and the lens and the lighting, everything is organic.So it was our visual effects supervisor Howard Jones, he said, Okay, if you wanted to repeat, then maybe what we could do is actually we could shoot the Norbots, just one row, and then we can have the camera move back into different positions to effectively give us the perspective so that we could then paste that behind.So we tried this out. It was like, Can we do that? Can we do an individual frame and then shoot several plates with the camera in different places? We couldnt because actually the characters just look wrong because the lighting doesnt change. So then we had to design this rig that basically would move them, slide them back, take a frame, slide them back, really complex, and then stitch them together in post.But what I love is that we could have tried to build CG models, but actually within our scope, within the budget, we didnt have any CG characters. We couldnt, and it wouldve been very expensive to actually make a CG Norbot that would hold up on screen that close. So everything we shot with the Norbots, we shot for real with the actual puppets.b&a: Feathers McGraw, the penguin, returns in this film. He seems like a very simple puppet build, but is that the case?Will Becher: Well, the actual shape of the face looks very simple. Feathers is literally like a bowling pin on legs. Thats how we have described him in the early days. And the original puppet, actually, it was the same size, same height, he looked the same. He probably just didnt look quite as advanced inside him. Thats the bit now we would 3D print. For the surface and the wings, its all just clay. And even wire, we still use wire because actually its really hard to get miniature articulated joints inside.Whats also new is the use of silicone. We used to use a lot more foam latex but foam over time just dries out, cracks. For Wallace and for Gromit, the bodies of them are actually silicone. Theyre full of fingerprints, but its a very flexible type of silicone, and it just saves us time focusing on things like the performance rather than focusing on cleaning up a joint. And thats the benefit of the newer technology.b&a: When youre building sets, what kinds of decisions do you make about how much can be built and what can be DMP? Theres a canal sequence in the film, for example, which seems like a massive build.Will Becher: Thats a really key example of the fusion of tech because the art director, Matt Perry, hes excellent. Hes really resourceful at building stuff on set, in person for real. But also he really wants it to feel big and advanced. So, what wed do is figure out how build it in sections. Hell build a section and say, Okay, Nick and Merlin, I think we need to build this much of it, and the rest of it well scan and well create as DMP.That means, theres a section of the canal for real, the actual boats, which are also real physical things they can fit in. And then its extended out. To do the whole thing in-camera, we would have needed a massive space and a huge amount of time as well to paint all those bricks. I think we ended up with two sections, two actual archways, and from that, we can shoot loads of plates and they can scan it.b&a: Have other technologies for shooting changed or come into play much in recent years, say with motion control or camera rigs?Will Becher: Well, theres a shot in the film where the camera goes up the staircase. Its funny the things you dont necessarily anticipate that are going to be a pain. None of our camerasour digi stills camerascould possibly get close enough because theyre too big. Theyre all high-end digital stills cameras. And so we had to test and mount lots of different smaller digital cameras on the end of a crane and try and get as close to the set as possible because we really wanted to create that camera move for real, traveling up the staircase.So Id definitely say the cameras have changed, but also the lights have become smaller and smaller. And with the lighting, were quite often putting tiny, practical lights in there for a candle flame or something. Theyre really advanced so we can program them to flicker and theyre so small we can hide them behind props. Theyre lower temperature as well. So for the animators, it used to be quite hot work. If you were in a unit with a couple of massive 5K or 10K lights, compared to today with LEDs, well, its a huge change.issue #25 animation conversationsb&a: I guess some of the other new technology involves using visual effects and CG for things like water. But still, I imagine to keep that Aardman and animated look, how do you ensure in your role that thats maintained?Will Becher: Theres a scene at the beginning where Gromit gets milk poured all over him. We tried all sorts of things, but when you get into particle effects, it gets really difficult. And so things like mist, fog, smoke, fire, milkit turns out we can never stop it looking the scale it is. So we tried milk and it just looks too thick. We tried lots of different materials. So in the end, the milk is a bit of a hybrid. We have it pouring out of the jug. We might use actual modeling clay. But then as soon as it hits Gromit, in this case, it turns into a CG effect.For water, we did a couple of things. Firstly we found this amazing stuff, this clear resin that you can sculpt. You sculpt this resin and you basically cure it with UV light, it goes hard. So its totally see through. So this is a new thing. Weve only been using it for a few years. Its fantastic. But you cant ever create a lake or an ocean that interacts with the characters. So theres a whole scene in this film where Wallace is in the water. And for that, we actually applied what looked like water to the puppet so that he was wet above water, but all the actual surface of the water is CG.Our directors, Nick and Merlin, neither of them are scared of using CG. They use it all the time, but theyll use it where it makes the film better, not for the sake of it. Also, we wont do stuff in camera for the sake of it. If it doesnt look good, well go to the best tools for the job.Read the full issue of the magazine.The post A mix of old and new appeared first on befores & afters.