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Ian Failes finds out how years of advancements in Pixar technology made the sequel to The Incredibles possible

Before Pixar’s 2004 hit, The Incredibles, the animation studio had yet to undertake a project so full of stylised CG human characters – each with skin, hair and cloth to simulate. Not only that, these characters, as dreamed up by director Brad Bird, had superpowers, and they traversed a wide array of locations and environments. But such is Pixar’s approach to conquering both the art and technology of animation that the problem of CG humans on that film was of course overcome. And when Bird returned for his latest outing with Incredibles 2, all of Pixar’s technological leaps and bounds since 2004, including its new approach to path traced rendering, were now available to the director for a film even larger in scope than the first.

THE SCOPE OF INCREDIBLES 2

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CHARACTER CONSIDERATIONS

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EFFECTS GO HAND-IN-HAND

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SHIELDS UP
BREAKING DOWN AN INCREDIBLES 2 SCENE
In this scene called ‘Stop the Tunneler’, the Parr family face one of their adversaries. Here’s how different Pixar teams achieved the final shot

STORYBOARDS

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CONCEPT ART

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SETS AND LAYOUT

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ANIMATION

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FINAL STEPS

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KEEPING CONSISTENCY WITH COLOUR SCRIPTS
Pixar’s colour script – done months before any animation is carried out – help map out the colour, lighting and emotional beats of their films

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