When an animation studio like Pixar has multiple dozens of people, all with their own styles, working on a project, how do they keep everything uniform?
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They have regular meetings, with a REALLY strong hand organizing everything, and share computer drives so they are involved and on the same page.
Usually in animation we have model sheets and motion bibles (terms vary from studio to studio) that tell us how each character expresses themselves, reacts, and moves. Everything from how they look over one shoulder, how they smile, where their centre of balance is, what they do when surprised, and so on.
This helps keep all the work uniform.
Along with what others have said, it’s also a lot of training to get animators to match styles. It’s honestly a pretty decent amount of the process of learning to be an animator, at least at university or what have you. 2D animation requires it a lot more than 3D though, where you usually create assets in a style created by someone brought on to do that and then just use those assets for either a base for more assets (mix and match hair, clothes, bodies etc for background characters and things like that)
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My uncle’s full time job for years was travelling between different locations where they were animating parts of the same project, making sure everything matched with each other and matched with the creative team’s vision, so I know they put real work and resources into the problem. But speaking of Pixar, The Onion [has a take on it as well](https://youtu.be/7mCktSlyETw)
Pixar has a free course over in Khan Academy regarding storytelling sharing their process.
They follow a structure and a cycle of feedback and editing.
It’s a lot of communication and iterations. This is why making movies takes years especially with animation.
The artists don’t get to express their own art styles. They’re in a job as a part of a team, they have to follow the art style their team / project leadership has settled on.
Learning to match an art style that isn’t “your own” is a key part of working at a large studio rather than working for an indie studio.
I have some friends that work at Pixar. Right when brave was coming out they gave me a tour of the studio which has its own cereal bar. One of them was in charge of Braves moms dress And how glittered on the glittery parts and the other guy in the rooms job was the shading on her mom stress. So they break down lots of things like that into little pieces and then have those people shared office together just working on that one character.
that’s the art directors job…
they develop standards, for modeling, animation and textures up front(typically a team effort), sometimes their changed.
you would be amazed at how specific a role an artist can have in a modern studio.
Good answers here.
I think it depends on the department you’re talking about. I’d say a lot of it is hierarchy, the director’s job is to make sure everything conforms to their vision, they’re chosen because they can visualize what the movie should be and make quick decisions. On top of that, every department has supervisors who make sure the same style is applied throughout their department.
Interesting to note that because storyboards aren’t shown in the final product, they tend to be more diverse in art style. I’d argue that the look gets more conformed as it goes through modeling, design, and layout, but in the end each animator has their own way of moving the characters. So the process begins and ends with a lot of personal artistic expression, with more confomity in the middle?
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