Simulating Rivers In The Good Dinosaur

July 3, 2016

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Simulating Rivers In The Good Dinosaur

Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is a journey through nature, with the environment and all its perils playing a major role alongside Arlo and Spot. The river they travel along is both an obstacle and a guide, and serves as a key storytelling tool – the film’s yellow brick road.
Because the rivers were so prominent, a linear department workflow was impractical; for the layout department to design shots they needed a reliable representation of the river, such that the features they designed the shot towards would stay consistent throughout the rest of the pipeline. In order to achieve this, a sequence-based workflow was adopted, where the river acted the same as any asset in the set. In the end, sections of river as long as a half mile were simulated in order to give the film makers the necessary flexibility.

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