English

Pixar’s Process

EXHIBIT AT THE DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE

Jesus Ernesto Sánchez Álvarez

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I’m sure everyone reading this article has seen at least one Pixar film. But have you ever wondered how they are even made in the first place? Well, get ready to venture into the world of Pixar animation at the The Science Behind Pixar show at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. This exhibition serves as a great introduction to the animation process employed by this great company, and the progression of these movies as a whole. The exhibition takes you through dozens of interactive sections each showing the various layers of Pixar’s animation methods.

The show has great material for kids, such as the opportunity to create your own animation of a jumping lamp, virtual modelling stations, and a set design section mirroring the setting of A Bug’s Life. The show isn’t exclusively for kids however. Although Pixar movies are primarily geared toward children, the exhibition can appeal to teens and adults alike through the delving into the more complex facets of animation, such as the application of math when creating these movies.

Art and math

I can sincerely say it was illuminating to see how math factors in to making Pixar films. To give an example, the exhibition goes into detail about how reflective textures were made in the movie Cars. In a surface challenge section, the audience is introduced to “Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions,” which basically describe how light scatters off a surface. Through applying this mathematical concept, animators were able to animate believable reflections on cars in the movie Cars.

Being an artist myself, I am interested in the overlap between math and art. This exhibition is a great example of how artists and mathematicians can work in harmony. There is a symbiotic relationship between creatives and the mathematicians at Pixar, which has resulted in some of the most beautiful films ever made. So for anyone who wants to further appreciate the work that went into these films, I highly recommend you attend The Science Behind Pixar.