The leading animation studio translated the iconic property’s 2D origins into a fully realized 3DCG feature, exploring character deformation, lightweight rigs, and Houdini-driven workflows, balancing between stylization and realism for a look that still feels unmistakably SpongeBob.
Converting a 2D-animated sponge into a 3D-animated sponge is not as straight-forward as it sounds.It’s deceptively simple.
“SpongeBob’s design is one that everybody knows,” says Elizabeth Hemme - VFX Supervisor for Reel FX on , which is now playing in theaters.
“But if you look at him carefully, the sponge texture itself was something that we really had to refine in 3D.” Augusto Schillaci, creative consultant and Reel FX CCO, adds, “SpongeBob looks so simple, but it’s difficult achieving all the types of movement the animators have to do with him, from rigging the whole internal skeleton to making sure the holes in his sponge don’t deform.In 2D, it is much easier to cheat with a lot of that stuff.But to achieve that in 3D, and make it look seamless, it’s a lot of work and it’s under the hood of production that people don't see.” Having previously worked together on the 3D short film , Hemme and Schillaci were excited to reunite to work on a feature film for one of the most well-known properties in Nickelodeon television history. In , based on the series created by Stephen Hillenburg, fan favorite Bikini Bottom denizens embark on their biggest, all-new, can’t miss, surely sublimely silly sea-faring comedy adventure.
Desperate to be a big guy, the porous protagonist SpongeBob sets out to prove his bravery to his Krusty Krab burger joint boss Mr.Krabs by following The Flying Dutchman – a mysterious swashbuckling ghost pirate – on a seafaring comedy adventure that takes him and his starfish best friend Patrick to the deepest depths of the deep sea, where no Sponge has gone before.Check out the trailer: Produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studios and Paramount Pictures with animation and effects from Reel FX, the film stars famed actors Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Rodger Bumpass, Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, and Mr.
Lawrence, with George Lopez, Isis “Ice Spice” Gaston, Arturo Castro, Sherry Cola, Regina Hall and Luke Skywalker himself...Mark Hamill.Derek Drymon directs.
Lisa Stewart, Pam Brady, and Aaron Dem produce.EPs are Marc Ceccarelli, Vincent Waller, Pete Chiappetta, Anthony Tittanegro, and Andrew Lary.Paramount’s Travis Ruiz serves as Art Director.
“Our production designer from Paramount, Pablo R.Mayer, wanted the characters in the film to have more of a miniaturized, textural feel, almost like little toys,” explains Hemme.“But we didn't want it to take away from the original 2D world that everybody knows.
We wanted to respect the simplicity of the 2D look while also diving into the world of textures and 3D lighting.There was a lot of exploration done in order to create something new and fresh.” Most of Reel FX’s animation pipeline is done in Maya.But, on , Houdini played a big role in the final look and effects.
“It’s not typical for us,” shares CG supervisor Mike Fortner.“The animators would get done with the shot with the lightweight rig, much lighter weight geometry, and we would go through a post-process in Houdini to evaluate all the overrides and get that texture to just be spot-on.” On a lightweight rig, the character mesh – the preliminary 3D model that serves for creating the animated characters – is not overly complex.Another way to put it, more specific to this project, is that it was a SpongeBob character model without the holes.
Those came later in Houdini. “You don’t want to be cutting out the holes for the mesh because that's just a huge slowdown,” notes Fortner.“And that was something we were trying to avoid.We could have written something custom to handle that.
We did think about it.Or we could just allow the animators to visualize where these holes were going to be, give them control and drive that in a Houdini system that does those calculations on the farm.It's not slowing down anyone's machine to evaluate the high-density geometry of the actual holes that are getting cut out and then carry that through to lighting.” He adds, “It's not mind-blowing to have a lightweight rig for the animation team.
Many productions do that.But that, on top of compositors having full control over all the holes and the look of SpongeBob to do crazy things like turning into that shape of Mr.Krabs or a ship’s sail, that’s pretty crazy, insane stuff.
Having control like that is what made SpongeBob next level.” In the film, SpongeBob doesn’t just squash and stretch like his usual exaggerated movements in the 2D show.During the movie, he also has transformation sequences and making sure his anatomy was both flexible and consistent – without causing any ridges or holes on his person to deform – was a one-of-a-kind challenge for the animators and effects artists. “The colors and the lighting all had to work together,” says Hemme.“Pablo really wanted the lighting to feel a little bit more realistic, especially character lighting.
It really needed to work with the performances in this film and had to be on point and complement the geometry of the characters as well as their personalities.We were really showing off the animation performance.” The movement of Mr.Krabs’ legs was one of those defining animation traits the team wanted to make sure made it into the 3DCG film.
But, like with everything else, it had to be done right. “His little feet move back and forth and that's something that is very true to Mr.Krabs,” notes Hemme.“Our animation team was controlling those as well and the lighting compositing team needed to make sure that those were showing up with the right transparencies.
We also created speed lines to give certain moments a more 2D look.It’s those little details included by the animation team and brought all the way through to the end of compositing that make this film’s look stand out.” Mr.Krab’s Krusty Krab restaurant was also a tough look to nail down in the 3DCG world.
It took three different design attempts before the team landed on a final decision. “The camera work in the original 2D show and how composition worked was so different than what is acceptable when you’re working with 3D environments,” says Hemme.“In 2D, there's a lot of cheated perspectives that are unique to , where it’s just a character and a metal wall background or horizontal lines.In order to get a good read on the character and have those cameras that we're used to from 2D , we had to have these sets that were built with two different scales and that were able to be rigged to do things like move windows because sometimes Derek just wanted it to be clean with just a character and background.” There was a good amount of experimenting and fun to be had artistically developing the scenes taking place on the ghost pirate ship and in the Underworld. “With the lighting in the underworld, we wanted to go darker, more mysterious, but we also didn’t want to lose too much detail,” explains Hemme.
“So, it is dark – with goo rivers and skulls – but also very vibrant.We used tiki bar lighting as inspiration because those places usually have a lot of fun colors.But they also have moody lighting.” But as vibrant as the Underworld is, the ship and its surrounding settings are very, in Fortner’s words, “dense.” “One of my biggest concerns was just this massive ship that has all these internal rooms and high detail, and a lot of characters have to fit on to the boat as well,” says Fortner.
“Plus, this ship moves extremely quickly through a vast environment.It’s lots of heavy assets in a dense and large environment.” So new lighting and rendering systems had to be developed. “Having a system to take all the different models and efficiently get them into lighting and rendering is nothing new,” admits Fortner.“But the number of animated pieces in the different set parts of the ship, all of which need to be overridden per shot with CFX [character effects] sims and mass moving around and repositioning was the most advanced case that I had worked on.
That was a challenge, and I'm glad that we overcame it.And yeah, it had me sweating for a little bit, but it ended up working out really well.” From Patrick’s shoulder movements to the shape and hues of Bikini Bottom’s coral, Reel FX took painstaking measures to create a 3D world that honored Hillenburg’s 2D masterpiece.For all ’s goofiness and comedy, the animation and effects teams couldn’t have taken their roles more seriously and it shows in the film. “We created this movie for the fans and original creators, but we are also part of the movie, too,” says Schillaci.
“So many different versions of have been done, but I think this film encapsulates the old and the new and gives people something fresh.I feel very proud of the whole team that we were able to do that.” Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime.She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment.
Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.
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