ANIMATING ABOMINABLE

DreamWorks Animation and Pearl Studio’s co-production Abominable, written and directed by Jill Culton and co-directed by Todd Wilderman, is about the bond between a teenage girl, Yi, and a young yeti she encounters in Shanghai. Together with her friends, Yi helps the creature – which they name Everest – return to its homeland.

For DreamWorks Animation, the film would not only involve creating and animating a large furry CG character, it would also require delivering many instances of magic and several large-scale FX sequences. 3D World dropped into the studio in Glendale, California to find out how it created Abominable’s VFX and animation.

A FURRY YETI

DreamWorks Animation is of course no stranger to furry creatures, but that did not always make the process of crafting Everest any easier, as visual effects supervisor Mark Edwards observes. “Having a 2,000-pound giant furry yeti is a technical challenge in itself, especially with the design we were trying to retain from character designer Nico Marlet. You