Pixar's Luca features a spectacular individual feel for which several new animation effects were developed. On the first glimpse of Luca, it's clear something is different. The movie has a bright feel, the characters move and speak in a different way, and the water is particularly artistic. There's a moment in the film where the two lead characters – Luca and Alberto, sea monsters who can turn into boys out of water – swim and leap through the sky, having the time of their life. Every choice is deliberate in this scene, and every animation innovation created to tell the story further lifts the two boys and communicates their emotions, stories, and development.

Luca director by Enrico Casarosa has worked in Pixar's art department since 2002 and has previous credits including directing the Academy Award-nominated Pixar short La Luna as well as work in the art department for Cars, Ratatouille, and Up. The influence of Casarosa as an artist is felt all through the film. The story of the upcoming Pixar movie, which is inspired by Casarosa's own childhood growing up in the Cinque Terre, follows Luca (Jacob Trembay) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer), two boys/sea monsters, as they form a fast friendship and experience a life-changing summer, meeting new friends, exploring new places, and stepping out of their comfort zone all the while.

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Set in the Italian Riviera, in and around a fictional town called Portorosso, the film features gorgeous visuals and settings, all of which contribute to a unique style of animation and effects. In fact, the effects team developed several new ways of showing environments, characters, and movement on-screen, all anchored in the concept of showing the "hand of the artist" through the animation and production design.

Perhaps more than any story Pixar has told, Luca relies on water – being in it, around it, under it, and covered in it. While Finding Nemo and Dory are set underwater, the fish are submerged almost the entire movie. Pixar's Luca shows the title character and Alberto interacting with water in a very different way, and the boys/monsters are constantly moving in and out of the water. For the effects team this, alongside the "hand of the artist" aesthetic, meant developing an entirely new way of depicting water and the way it moves. The Luca team gave details of their innovations at a press preview event in March 2021.

Pixar's New Water Effects For Luca

Luca and Alberto, as sea monsters, peek out of the water in Luca.

"The goal here was not photorealism," said effects supervisor Jon Reisch (Monsters University, The Good Dinosaur). "We wanted to do something unique with the look of Luca and, early on in the process, it was really clear that Enrico had this vision of a beautiful simplified elegance for the look of the film. That elegance was inspired (by) and leaning into our 2D influences, but also delivering on all the visual richness and expectations that we have on ourselves as Pixar." The team was also inspired by other 2D graphics such as Japanese woodblock paintings.

Reisch and his team strove to find an entirely new way of depicting water on screen that fit with Casarosa's pursuit of elegance but also lent to the story the movie portrays. "At Pixar, and especially in our effects department, we're very comfortable with realism," says Reisch. "We know how to achieve that... Stepping towards stylization in our effects was sort of a hard left turn away from everything."

The effects team worked against the photorealistic approach of previous Pixar movies (such as Finding Dory or Cars 3) which relied on oceanographic research, and instead strove for an artistic approach that conveyed emotion and a sense of story. The result was a close control over the way water is depicted, using "adjustable frequencies" with control over the size, shape, movement, and speed of waves and the water's surface. "We built sliders that allowed us to mix in more or less than a certain size of wave. And that really started to crack open this idea of injecting artistic control," said Reisch. "And now our effects were starting to support the overall style goals of the film."

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Pixar's Luca Uses New "Cartoon Splashes"

Luca and Alberto swim in Luca

The team also overworked the way splashes are illustrated. Instead of organic, realistic splashes which lack symmetry or artistry, the effects team went for what they call "cartoon splashes" – a much more elegant and controlled depiction of water, which seems apt for an animated movie. "We literally sculpted these kinds of clean graphics, silhouette shapes that we wanted and injected those sculptural shapes," said Reisch, saying this kind of constructed splash was particularly useful on Luca as the boys jump in and out of the water frequently. "There's less distracting detail and splash particles going everywhere. And now we're headed back towards that elegant simplicity of our film."

Luca's Characters Blend Elements Of 2D And 3D Animation

luca pixar multi-limb

Luca also veers away from Pixar's historical pursuit of realism in its character animation and further draws from 2D cartoon influence. Animation supervisor Mike Venturini (Toy Story 3, Coco) describes traditionally 2D-animation techniques such as multi-limb depictions of movement, suggesting rapid movement but in a 3D animation environment. "It was part of our more graphic and fun style that we were trying to create," said Venturini, going on to describe that even the way the characters speak and emote drew from this 2D inspiration, with character expression, particularly through mouths and eyes, being much more figurative rather than anatomical. "In a traditional Pixar film you wouldn't see this range on a main character... in 2D animation, you tend to be more illustrative with your choices. We really wanted to focus on the silhouette and design of our poses."

Luca Shows Brand-New Animation Techniques

luca pixar transformation

"From the start, transformation was at the core of the story," says character supervisor Beth Albright (Monsters UniversityFinding Dory). "It's rooted in Luca's self-discovery and exploration, and even in the films major theme: that friendships can be transformative." And it's literal too, with Luca and Alberto regularly changing shape from their sea monster to human forms. The transformation isn't instant, or hidden behind a puff of smoke or splash of water. The team on Luca needed to find a way to demonstrate the transformation that contributed to the story and lived up to the "hand of the artist" aesthetic Casarosa was pushing for.

"We knew we needed some kind of a ripple to move through the body. So we started working with effects to get scales moving over the surface," said Albright, going on to say that the team narrowed in on the act of getting wet – especially by splashing or swimming – was the transformation they could draw inspiration from. So several Pixar teams collaborated to create sophisticated new models that allowed them to control with extreme precision the way the transformation takes place across Luca and Alberto's bodies. This allowed for the comedic "spit take" moment in the trailer where part of Alberto's face transforms while the rest of him stays human.

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"I wanted it to be like jumping into a kid's book," said Casarosa of the aesthetic he pursued for the film, and he says that the look of the film is both related to its main character, and to his own origins in the art and story departments at Pixar. "Among the traits that we gave Luca is this huge amount of curiosity, imagination, the sense of paying attention," he said in a Q&A after the press briefing. "Sketching and making comics is where I come from, and that is where that idea comes from: Is there any way that we can retain some of the sketched watercolor, (and) wonderful expressiveness, through the process? ... These outsider characters, are the characters I'm always looking for because I want to see that world with a bit more attention."

Of course, Pixar is renowned for its story-first approach, and it seems Casarosa has taken the same approach: First knowing the story Luca tells about its characters then exploring how the animation and effects can build that world and contribute to the storytelling. It's something viewers can see for themselves when Pixar's Luca lands on Disney+ exclusively on June 18, 2021.

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