Digital Character Construction

in Disney's "Dinosaur"

Stewart Dickson, Walt Disney Feature Animation

Abstract

The author worked from July, 1996 to November, 1999 in the Production Software and Character Finaling Departments of the digital production crew for the animated feature "Dinosaur" [1] at Walt Disney Feature Animation.

The film features computer-generated characters in environments captured through location photography. The digitally-assembled layers for each shot in the film were further manipulated with lighting and atmospheric effects to achieve a uniform and continuous visual appearance throughout the film. The result is that the 70-minute film is effectively a special visual effect from start to finish.

The author will present the layered method of character construction, with references to the available literature on the techniques, along with images of the characters in various stages of the construction and animation.