How Disney's Animation Evolved From 'Frozen' To 'Frozen II' | Movies Insider

here is Elsa Nana in Frozen from 2013 and here they are

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; While they may look like the characters you know and love at first glance, if you zoom in on their clothes, you'll see how they're different in the update you can now see. three-dimensional jewels, stitching and even the finest threads, all of these details would not have been possible in the first film, technological advances allowed them to do much more for the sequel, including creating a horse completely out of water, why Disney Animation Studios? make us wait six years between

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and frozen; Well, first he wanted to make sure the original justified a sequel with a story worth telling, but during that time Disney Animation, which works completely separately from Pixar, made technological advances that would allow the team to improve the look and design of a team.

Of approximately 75 animators worked on the film for approximately four years since one of the main themes in the new stories changed, they had a lot of work to do to update the characters and their environment, the change makes fun of us. their beauty while staying true to the world they created the main character is Elsa Anna Kristoff and Olaf were created from scratch for the first film but now they needed a makeover, you can see the subtle differences in their faces but even more so in their hair . and clothing Disney Animation had some

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between frozen and frozen - to develop their hair

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they based it on programs used to make the bun hair for Moana they developed a software called Quicksilver which allowed them to create realistic hair that could react to forces like wind, water and intense action, according to technical

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supervisor Christopher Ever, Mallanna's hair came with many tight curls, while Anna had many more individual hairs to maintain a new software called beast that allowed them to simulate more and more hairs per frame and at a much faster pace, some of the characters will be put through a rollercoaster test simulation, this identified if they needed to add more qualities to the hair such as hair thickness, again it was based on the character, they did that Ana's hairstyle was more mature than the character.

Aged up, the overall clothing designs are much more complex than in the original, just look at these two shots of Anna and Elsa frozen and frozen; In this shot from the second movie you can see where the Onon elves are standing in the Enchanted Forest. that her clothes are much more detailed, Elsa's dress no longer seems to be covered in just two-dimensional sequins, but there are incredibly detailed little jewels all over it, meanwhile, now you can even see all the little seams on the exhaust and on this take we're on. and Olaf are enjoying the warmer weather, you can really see every little thread in Ana's dress as Elsa goes through some wardrobe changes.

The animators made sure that everything she wore was part of a cool color palette. The animation team felt that if they went too hot with the color. choosing something would feel wrong since certain colors are associated with certain characters. Movement was also an essential trait to do well. Getting an animated character to move is all about mastering checkpoints. Each finger has three or four control points in Frozen alone. Elsa's feet had multiple. control points so that she looked natural while she moved barefoot, which was important since her most important actions occur while she is barefoot and movement, like clothing and hair, can be used to define her features. characters.

The animators use movement to demonstrate how the characters change from the first film. As well as the differences between them, Elsa walks and reacts with refined movements, especially compared to Anna, who was much more lively in her actions and while the two sisters spent most of their time frozen, some of them were frozen; They are together most of the time, hence the differences. between them are even more marked, you can see this especially in the charades scene, Elsa is mostly silent listening and moving up and down while Anna moves with her whole body, but Elsa, who is now much more confident than In the first film, he walks.

With a much greater sense of purpose, there is an even more subtle detail than the movement that the animators needed to achieve correct breathing. It's especially essential for a film that involves singing. The animation team even brought in a vocal coach to teach them types of breathing techniques. The professional singer would use to take a look at this scene when Elsa sings into the unknown. We can see all the subtle movements in her body almost as if we were watching Idina Menzel recording the song, but there are some new characters here that posed an even greater challenge. for the animators and that's because they are not humans or creatures, but the elements now in most computer animated films, the visual effects and the animation teams work separately, the animators create the characters and the animation team Visual effects add computer simulations, such as weather effects or how a piece of clothing will cover a character, what do you do when the effects are your characters?

There is no better example of this than Gale, who is a gust of wind. The wind would normally be a VFX simulation added later in the process, but here it's a character. so they had to create a new program for the animators just for this called swoop. Usually you only see the end result of the wind, but this time we see it as a full character to get this basically invisible character to work properly, a wind platform ran alongside the given scenes and they were able to manipulate its size and add simulations to it. which help determine Gale's speed and path.

Here is Gale entering a house and pushing Sven towards the door, creating Gale. It also required working closely with the environments team on elements like sweeping leaves. by Gale, for example, when Olaf is singing When I'm Older solo, it was necessary to place piles of leaves on the ground for Gale to pick up. At an early point in the design process, they contemplated Gale taking the form of the other characters imitating his shapes with debris and the animators had to think about whether at one point Gale was supposed to be playful or dangerous, but let's not act like this wasn't a fun challenge, in addition to studying physics, the animators went skydiving in search of of inspiration, the skydiving experience certainly demonstrates this.

If you look at this photo of Bruni being blown by the wind, he has his arms and legs extended in a skydiving fashion. Items came in all shapes and sizes. The largest were the terrestrial giants. Due to their large size, the land giants had to move. very slowly in designing them, the animators incorporated features of the trolls from the first film, as you can see in these drawings, they shared many of the same characteristics, from the shape of their torso to the size of their nose, which is not surprising , making a giant. moving out of the rocks is not easy the assembly process was intense as the rock shapes and asymmetrical bodies restricted their movements it was also important that each piece of rock moved correctly and did not go through another rock and last but not least , there was The Water Horse Heist, which was the product of eight months of hard work, there were several challenges to create a creature made of water that also had to be faithful to the appearance of a real horse because it does not have real pupils or eyes for that .

However, it is much more difficult to convey the emotions of the characters, so the animators relied on Knox's ears and made the ears point towards where the hit was and at the same time conveyed his mood, if the ears point backwards, the horse is angry if the ears are pointed at the riders. They respect the cyclist, but before the animators could control his emotions, they had to figure out how to control the water he is made of, while the moaña water had a certain personality, it was nowhere near this complex in the first tests it came out too much water.

The mane and tail that the animators described as a fire hydrant were eventually controlled to the point where it looked more like a gentle waterfall. The nock also had to look like it was part of the ocean, so they looked at elements of the real ocean. Like the mist and spray that forms at the end of the mane and tail as it moves, staying true to the shape of the water also requires making the noch different from a real horse in some ways, such as the way it which moves when the nock runs over the water. see the sort of breaking and stretching of the hull, which is evident if you slow down this clip of the nock running on a wave to get an idea of ​​the real horses.

The animators studied horse anatomy, met with a horse trainer, and actually rode a horse. It was important to not only capture the appearance of the horses but the weight of them so that Elsa could really get a sense of the power of this creature, while all the characters went through transformations that changed a lot in their world and, being frozen, great Part of the land is covered in snow, so the animators went. to Cheyenne Wyoming to walk through waist-deep snow and see what it would be like for the characters, but frozen - it's supposed to be fall so the snow is melting, this presented new challenges as more terrain was revealed and surroundings, there was a lot more detail needed to be included in each shot, especially in a new setting for the film, the Enchanted Forest.

Every tree, rock and plant took a lot of planning and work to get to where it is. In search of inspiration, the team ventured into the wilderness of Norway, Iceland. and Finland to experience what the characters they were animating would experience and get inside their heads while there they studied the landscape and culture and even stood on a glacier to see what it would be like for Elsa to be on one they also worked on. Using a botanist to determine what trees and plants would realistically grow in the area, much like Elsa's costume, a crucial part of establishing this particular setting was defining its color palette, which they wanted to be in line with the first. movie, as you can see in this shot. of the enchanted forest, the leaves are mostly orange on magenta, there is barely any yellow, which is a color generally associated with autumn.

Compare it to this frozen opening scene and you can see how similar they really are. Many of the shots in this forest were intentional. Extra wide shots make the characters feel more alone and isolated, while much of the film takes place in new lands. Frozen 2 also revisits some familiar locations, notably Arendelle. Arendelle is covered in snow for most of the first films, but remember it's fall now, so The Kingdom needed a makeover of its own because the buildings were no longer covered in snow. The animators had to add many new details. They filled in roof details in places where there might originally have been snow, but there were also some buildings designed with colors that were specifically intended.

To look good in the snow and ice, these buildings received a new paint job so they would look good against the new fall backdrop. One of the big turning points in Frozen occurs in the dark sea. This is where the NOx scene takes place. Realistic water isn't easy and the animators use what they've learned from previous Disney films to make it work for the dark sea. They were largely inspired by Rana sfera, a black sand beach on the southern coast of Iceland. Nailing the scene required a lot of coordination. between the animation team and the visual effects team and since she was going to walk in the simulation, everything had to match perfectly.

The animators also mastered some factors about the water that you never think of like the house and how it looks when it gets wet after getting wet. hit by a wave Disney Animation developed another simulation engine for Moana called Splash, which gave them plenty of practice navigating the open ocean. Through this they were able to calculate, for example, what it would look like if a wave broke for Moana, the challenge she was trying to do. the water is calm but frozen: it was important to make the waves big and overwhelming while still looking real. You can see those realistic waves right here as Elsa stares at them on the beach before running straight ahead while looking incredibly realistic, according to the animators. they actually backed off so they wouldn't look too real, I'm sure they now had the tools to make it look like real water, but sometimes it's more important that your animation look realistic for the animated fantasy world, your curry not necessarily for our world , otherwise, you remove it.

From the magic that began in 2013.