For the grooms of characters, DreamWorks Animation utilized a proprietary software referred to as Willow. “For the newer characters like Perrito and the Bears we wished to push these clumps, and the way the hair regarded within the silhouette edges made it really feel extra stylized,” Edwards remarks. “Plenty of controls have been added to have the ability to add coloration hues not simply to our regular coloration maps for hair, but additionally for clumps or sub-clumps. We may get these larger, broader coloration blotches that appear to be paint strokes. We additionally mapped transparency to our thicker information curves, and that meant we may get little breakups between a single fifth hair. It felt much more like what an illustrator would possibly draw with a few gaps. We ended up utilizing that rather a lot to get damaged edges.” When Puss in Boots drinks a cup of espresso, his eyes change into extraordinarily expressive. Observes Edwards, “By way of character rigging, we attempt to lean into that so animation can have the controls, as a result of that means they will drive the timing of the expressions. As a result of we wished to have some asymmetry with the eyes, we may do all types of issues with the pupils and iris and truly get shapes.”
