CGTantra has an interview with Apurva Shah, effects supervisor at Pixar Animation Studios. We don’t often see interesting interviews with effects guys who work in animation, so this is a real treat.

On Ratatouille we worked on several different problems at this early stage – quadruped rig for the rats, organic modeling and edge displacement to avoid straight, CG lines, translucency and subsurface for food and skin, food effects and visual manipulation of the image to avoid grey, CG colors to name a few. I can’t imagine how we could have taken on the film without some of this initial development. However, it’s also important to balance how much you invest in upfront activities without solid story and layout to back you up. Time and budget is finite so you want to pick the most important things to focus on.

Check it out!