LogInRassoul Edj shared how AI spiders were used to design the antique mall.
VFX artist Rassoul Edj, who often shares behind-the-scenes insights on major film productions, including his work on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, revealed some details about the creation of the cobwebs in the Second-Chance Antiques store in Toy Story 4.
In the Toy Story universe, where the camera often focuses just centimeters from surfaces, achieving highly detailed textures like oxidation, dents, dirt, and cobwebs is crucial, and sometimes, typical shader approaches can't provide the desired level of detail.
Typically, those cobwebs must be crafted manually, but because of the number of cobwebs the team wanted to include in this movie, Sets Extensions Technical Director Hosuk Chang developed a program to create a group of artificial intelligence spiders to weave the cobwebs just like a real spider would.
The AI spiders are visible as red dots as they weave webs, streamlining the process of adding cobwebs to the environment in a realistic manner. However, any webs requiring interaction with characters were still created by hand to ensure they behaved correctly.
Learn more about this Toy Story 4's technology in the interview with the team and the paper. Also, read our interview with Rassoul Edji on creating a lifelike Samurai character, covering the process of texturing the model's detailed skin and intricate armor using Mari and Substance 3D Painter:
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