Pixar, the famous animation studio known for producing hit movies like Toy Story and Finding Nemo, has found a creative solution to a problem it faced while working on its new movie, Elemental. The film is about characters made of various elements, including a lead character called Ember, who is supposed to be made entirely of fire. However, creating an animated fire character was proving to be a challenge for the studio. The animators had tools to create a flame effect, but shaping it into a character was difficult. The flames looked terrifying and unrealistic.
Paul Kanyuk, a crowds technical supervisor at Pixar, came up with an idea to use neural style transfer, a type of artificial intelligence, to solve this problem. He had been working with this technology to enhance animations of clothing for mass crowds in previous movies. The idea was to apply neural style transfer to Ember’s fire character to make it look more natural and recognizable. Kanyuk enlisted the help of Disney Research Studios to help with the project.
The team drew a set of swirly, pointy, and almost cartoonish flames that they called the fleur-de-lis. They then combined it with the original flame simulation using neural style transfer technology to create Ember’s character. This solved the problem and gave the fire character more intensity and movement while still maintaining Pixar’s unique style and control. The process was time-consuming and expensive, but it was worth the effort to achieve the desired result.
The process of creating Ember has taught the animators that AI technologies can be useful in solving animation challenges. Pixar sees the potential of AI and machine learning in animation and plans to use them more in the future to create highly-detailed and realistic animated characters.
The success of using AI technology to create Ember in Pixar’s Elemental is proof that creativity and technology can merge to produce stunning animation that excites and delights audiences. With Pixar’s expertise in animation and AI technology, we can expect even more spectacular animated movies in the future.
