{"id":633552,"date":"2026-10-17T15:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T15:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/633552\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T15:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T15:26:09","slug":"the-angry-birds-3-rebuilding-red-automating-fur-expressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/633552\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Angry Birds 3’: Rebuilding Red, Automating Fur, Expressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe red-feathered hero of \u201cThe Angry Birds Movie 3<\/a>\u201d looks reassuringly familiar, but DNEG Animation<\/a> had to rebuild much of him to bring the franchise back to theaters. And as the studio reconstructed Red\u2019s fur, facial rig and expressions, it also developed a system that ultimately automated character-effects work on roughly 75% of the film\u2019s shots.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s similar by choice,\u201d VFX supervisor Patrick Harboun said at View Conference<\/a> in Turin on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe upcoming Paramount release, directed by John Rice, reunites Jason Sudeikis\u2019 Red with Silver, voiced by Rachel Bloom, as they navigate parenthood alongside their latest adventure. DNEG takes over animation duties from the Sony Pictures Animation productions behind the first two films.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe technical handover was anything but straightforward. In fact, proprietary grooming, rigging and surfacing tools used on the predecessors could not simply be transferred to DNEG\u2019s pipeline. \u201cWe had to start from this. A plucked chicken version of Red,\u201d Harboun joked, displaying a bare digital model. Even its underlying geometry needed reworking before the team could reconstruct its feathers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe result deliberately avoided a radical makeover. Red\u2019s plumage became slightly softer, while his eyes and beak gained firmer, more toy-like surfaces. \u201cOnce an IP becomes popular, it kind of belongs to the fans, and we have to respect that,\u201d Harboun said. \u201cWe can\u2019t just add our own spin just to give our mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studio scrutinized the earlier movies frame by frame. \u201cWe analyzed the past movies to find the unwritten rules of animation,\u201d he explained. Animators cataloged the angles of Red\u2019s beak, the geometry of his narrowed eyes and the boundaries beyond which a stretched expression stopped feeling like Red. The lessons became a style guide and a reusable library of facial expressions.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was more room for experimentation with over 20 new characters, including Red and Silver\u2019s children: aspiring athlete Glider, voiced by Walker Scobell; temperamental June, played by Emma Myers; and baby Olly, voiced by Psalm West. The family also has a pet spider named Fuzzy, voiced by James Austin Johnson. \u201cThe goal was to make a spider that even an arachnophobe would love,\u201d Harboun said.<\/p>\n

\n\tOlly created a distinctive technical challenge because his glasses effectively serve as animated eyes, complete with moving eyelids and brows. DNEG\u2019s solution, nicknamed \u201cPancake Eyes,\u201d involved duplicating and flattening portions of the baby\u2019s facial rig behind the lenses, then restoring curvature and allowing the expressions to respond to the character\u2019s exaggerated squash-and-stretch movement.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe biggest efficiency gain came through a performance-effects process building on DNEG\u2019s earlier work for \u201cThe Garfield Movie.\u201d Following approval of a character\u2019s animation, the system automatically simulated selected effects on fur, feathers and deformation, rendered a preview and identified shots requiring bespoke artist attention. As the crew encountered new problems, they improved reusable templates for each character.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not machine learning, it\u2019s human learning,\u201d Harboun underlined, stressing that artists maintained those templates. Early in production, around 25% of shots could pass through the automated process; by later stages, that figure had risen to 75%. \u201cThis frees up a lot of artists for hero work,\u201d he explained. The percentage applies to character-effects processing, not to shots being animated or completed without artists.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther inventions included a secondary, normally invisible layer of fur that appears when characters stretch, preventing bald patches, and one-click tools for building ropes, hay and props that animators could manipulate independently, without repeatedly calling on other departments.<\/p>\n

\n\tProduction designer Jeanie Chang\u2019s saturated tropical palette posed another challenge. Lighting references were painted directly over layout images so artists could match intended compositions, but differently colored characters still required individual lighting adjustments within the same scene. \u201cIn every given situation, Red always needs to be red,\u201d Harboun said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film also expands Bird Island with Pigtropolis, a city for its pig residents. Harboun revealed that the opening sequence was changed from night to day late in production. He encouraged audiences to seek out the 3D version when the film opens Dec. 23: \u201cI\u2019m usually not a fan of 3D, but I really recommend that you check out the 3D version.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Harboun, such innovations only work when they reinforce what audiences already recognize. The characters may have been rebuilt and their workflows reinvented, but their familiar identities remain the foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The red-feathered hero of \u201cThe Angry Birds Movie 3\u201d looks reassuringly familiar, but DNEG Animation had to rebuild…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[310476,156,409,111,139,69,446,310477,310478],"class_list":["post-633552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-dneg-animation","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paramount-pictures","tag-the-angry-birds-movie-3","tag-view-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}