Behind the Scenes

Have you ever wondered how Computer Generated (CG) movies are made? As you might imagine, it takes a lot of time and team effort. Here you can walkthrough some of the main steps involved in its creation…

Design and Story

Like all the CG Characters, Iyke started as a rough sketch on a sketchpad. It took an appealing drawing and a fresh idea for our character that got the ball rolling. Once the project gets the thumbs-up, pre-production begins with storyboard artists and a staff of writers who assemble to work up an interesting storyline and begin writing scripts. The storyboard is a crucial element of pre-production as it acts as a visual blueprint for the entire animation.

Before the animation can begin, voice tracks are recorded and a 2D animatic is created consisting of the storyboard drawings married to the finished soundtrack with voices and music.

Character Modeling & Setup

A digital 3-D model is constructed from the initial design and used for planning and animation. The model is unwrapped and textured with realistic skin and bumps. The Character Technical Directors develop a skeleton system with manipulative controls that the animators would use to create the illusion of movement.

Animation, Effects & Lighting

This is the fun part where you can see all the effort from pre-production in motion. The character animators articulate the many controls that were created during the character-rigging phase to bring “Iyke” to life and to synchronize him to the voice performance. The Director or Animation Director will assign scenes to animators. Depending on the project and technique, there can be a single animator working alone or a large team in which there may be a range of talents and skills from lead animator down to junior assistant.

However, it’s not finished yet. In CG, the colouring of character and environment models will be enhanced by Effects and Lighting.

Lighting plays a high priority role in the creative process of CG. Here we dictate dictating the final colour and atmosphere of each shot. Compositing can apply to all techniques of animation and is the point at which various visual elements including animation, backgrounds and effects are combined into the final image.

Finally, phase music will be recorded, sound effects added and the soundtrack finalized in the stage of post production. The digital picture is combined with the completed soundtrack as an Edit Master and can then be output either at broadcast standard or onto film, depending on the delivery requirements.