Fraunhofer IGD’s Cuttlefish driver and Stratasys PolyJet printers carried the replacement animation of the studio’s most ambitious film to date.
To create one second of smooth stop-motion animation, animators may have to replace a character’s face 24 times and take 24 separate photographs. If one of them is a shade off, audiences will see it on the big screen. LAIKA worked with that constraint on Wildwood. Described as the studio’s most challenging and ambitious production to date, the film opened in U.S. theaters on October 23 and releases in Germany on November 5.
To address this constraint, the Oregon-based studio relied on Cuttlefish®, the full-color 3D printer driver developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD, combined with Stratasys’ J750 and J850 PolyJet 3D printers. The use of these solutions led to more than 142,000 bespoke facial expressions.
The collaboration goes back about a decade.
LAIKA came across Fraunhofer IGD’s research through a scientific publication, shortly after Brian McLean, LAIKA’s Director of Rapid Prototype, was recognized by the Academy for “pioneering the use of 3D printers in stop motion animation.” Initial test prints led to a long-term licensing partnership. We discovered it in 2019, when Cuttlefish and the Stratasys J750 were used to produce color-matched faces for Missing Link.
Cuttlefish converts LAIKA’s digital 3D models, including their color and texture information, into optimized print data. The solution aims to reproduce colors, textures and fine geometries precisely and consistently, even on very small parts, using dedicated methods for texture sharpening, surface optimization and color processing. For Wildwood, Fraunhofer IGD implemented “numerous enhancements” to meet the production’s requirements. Details of these enhancements have yet to be revealed.
“Wildwood is an amazing cinematic experience; the scale, scope, and emotional impact of this film are unprecedented in animation. In order to accomplish a story of this complexity, we needed a process that could create intense and deep emotional facial performances, with rich skin tones and fine details, and the only way that was possible was through artists blending technology and innovation into a seamless practical effect,” said Brian McLean.
Beyond the usual benchmark
Over the years, we have come to realize that in this industry, sometimes producing in a reproducible and accurate manner simply requires the right tools. While an industrial production project would have emphasized automation to achieve this, the team at LAIKA relies on simpler tools.
Yet this is not the studio’s first achievement of this kind. While LAIKA 3D printed 64,000 faces for Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), then 106,000 for Missing Link, a figure Guinness World Records listed as the most 3D printed faces made for a stop-motion film, Wildwood goes well beyond that mark.
In this specific case, every part is unique, yet each one must match the previous one in color and surface finish. Few industrial applications push mass customization and frame-to-frame repeatability this far.
Now that LAIKA integrated PrismSlicer into the studio’s pipeline to preview color and translucency ahead of printing, I am curious to see how far repeatability can be achieved.
As a reminder, Fraunhofer IGD’s Cuttlefish can also contribute to medical technology and industrial manufacturing. “A studio like LAIKA sets some of the most demanding requirements in full-color 3D printing. Technologies that prove themselves in this environment can create value across many other industries,” said Philipp Urban, Head of Research and Development 3D Printing at Fraunhofer IGD.
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