Pixar – Piggy Tutorial

Toy character design

Content for Pixar

We have been beta testing for Pixar for a number of years and the work we have done using their software has not gone unnoticed. Pixar were so impressed that they asked us to produce a tutorial for their RenderMan University.

Rendering glossy advertisements

At Bigman we regularly get requests to create a 3D piggy bank and so we chose to use this scenario for the tutorial. We called the tutorial Physically Plausible Pig and the idea behind it was to guide the reader through a typical advertising job from start to finish.

Minimalist design

It was important that the final product we created for the tutorial was something that would be appealing. We decided that our design should be contemporary and iconic, so it demonstrates the high standard of work we are able to produce with the sophisticated rendering software.

Preparation

Often we want to replicate the texture and appearance of an object we are creating in CGI and we’ve found it is important to study the object before beginning work. For this project we wanted the final image of the piggy bank to have a realistic pottery finish and so spent time researching and studying pottery so we could perfectly replicate it. The research we did meant that we were able to create a realistic layered effect, showing the glaze over the painted ceramic.

Catering to the masses

The finished tutorial is live on Pixar’s website and is available for everyone to access and learn from. It showcases some of the techniques we use here at Bigman everyday to create quality artwork for the advertising industry at breakneck speed.