JONATHAN PAINE
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Ratatouille

12/16/2020

4 Comments

 
A few words about working on Ratatouille.

The approach taken on this film really required a collaborative environment. All the characters you see here I worked on, but as it was a collective effort all the character modellers had a hand in finishing them.

We started the humans with Larousse. When modelling the character, you need to create a mesh, much like what chicken wire looks like, stretched over the form. That network, of lines and points is called the base mesh, and the flow of the lines is called the topology. Every single one of the humans had the same topology (line flow). Once the topology had been determined for Larousse, we had to create the shape for the next character by pushing around the points of the mesh.

We could take Larousse's mesh only so far in creating the next mesh as each character had it's own unique features and it wasn't always possible to define the form using the Larousse mesh. So we added more vertices (points) and lines to the mesh to create the more complex human shapes. In order to maintain a standard topology between all the characters, we had to propagate that topology through all the existing meshes. So there was a lot of back and forth whilst updating and maintaining a consistent topology.

​This took a great deal of time in the beginning, but it resulted in a huge time saving for the rigging department. We used the same process when modelling the rats. We were not really sure if we were finished with the characters until we arrived at the final character of each species.

The following slides are of Remy, Linguini, Colette, Gusteaus, Lalo, Larousse, Baby Rat, Desiree, and Celine.
4 Comments
Wayne Batchelor
2/25/2023 02:38:10 pm

On the chef uniforms, (tunic and pants) did you model the folds into the base mesh so they flexed correctly when rigged, or was cloth simulation/physics used? They really move well, a bit stiff with big folds like you would get from a heavily starched tunic like you would get from a uniform service. The stitching looks great, are they modeled or bump map?

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Jana link
12/15/2024 05:15:03 pm

Same I also like how you make them when I think about it it actually sounds sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard to make these characters and the background of the Ratatouille movie.

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Jana link
12/15/2024 05:11:55 pm

The movie is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood and veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting. I am so impressed by all of the hard work that you did just to make a movie for all of us. Thank you very much I love this movie. I have watched it more than 10 times because it's so good to watch. And now I am doing a project about it in school because you guys made it so fun to watch that movie ( Ratatouille ).

Reply
Busty Escorts Toowoomba link
3/2/2025 08:03:41 am

It's fascinating how you used a shared base model for efficiency while still allowing individual character details.

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    Author

    Jonathan Paine

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    Award-winning illustrator, character sculptor and toymaker. 

    Jonathan has been creating funny art that cracks people up for the past 25 years. He has worked on 3D animated features that include Ice Age for Blue Sky Studios, Space Chimps, and, for Pixar, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Cars, Up, and several shorts.

    Earlier, he performed with the Muppets, was a miniature model-maker on Captain Power and was a stop motion animator at The Animation House.

    He ran his own toy prototyping business, servicing clients such as Disney, Warner Bros, and Thinkway Toys.

    ​He’s taught Sculpting, Colour Theory and Lighting and was a modeling mentor at VFS.

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  • Home
  • About
  • Portfolio
    • Film Work >
      • The Incredibles
      • Ratatouille
      • Up
      • Ice Age
      • Boundin'
      • One Man Band
      • Lifted
    • Toys, Figurines and Prototypes
  • JP Photography
  • Contact
  • Personal Projects
  • WORKSHOPS
  • ETSY
  • Blog
  • Testimonials