Denizen: How ডিজনি Populated San Fransokyo with Citizens … and Animators 

Fisher-Price Disney Frozen Jeep Wrangler Ride On

Enjoy this article? You may also be interested in these related items from our partners

(November 7, 2014), Walt Disney Animation Studios introduced a lot of new technology to make it happen: importing real world data from San Francisco’s county assessor’s office; creating a new rendering system called Hyperion (also used for

) to handle how light is handled; and creating Denizen, a piece of software to populate San Fransokyo with citizens (and tourists).

Rather than have to design and animate thousands of locals individually, Walt Disney Animation Studios created Denizen, a proprietary system created that revolutionizes how artists create and animate crowds.

‘In order to create and maintain those characters, we needed to find a way to generate them procedurally so they could evolve as the show evolved and be created on the fly when needed,’ notes John Kahwaty, character rigging supervisor. Described as a character asset pipeline wrapped up into one small package, Denizen ‘ingests a small number of characters that define the style for the show and analyzes and compares them. It then provides a character designer a way to see all the pieces we create up front and blend them together to create a final model, rig, cloth rig, hair rig, and look that can be immediately inserted into a shot, animated and rendered.’

All totaled, 670 unique characters were generated by Denizen — compared to 270 in

— but each character can have up to 32 different clothing look combinations, not to mention 32 different hair and skin tones. That means filmmakers could invite 686,080 unique characters into San Fransokyo party before having to duplicate any. In addition, Denizen does allow for customization, so about 200 Walt Disney Studios Animation employees ‘appear’ in

Information compiled from materials provided by Walt Disney Studios.

Denizen: How Disney Populated San Fransokyo with Citizens … and Animators

New Disney Store Arrivals and Sales for October 17, 2014 (14 Items)

New Disney Store Arrivals and Sales for October 16, 2014 (35 Items)

WATCH: ‘Big Hero 6′ Clip, ‘Low Battery’

‘Frozen’ Graphic Novel Cinestory Available for Pre-Order

New Disney Store Arrivals and Sales for October 15, 2014 (41 Items)

‘Big Hero 6′ Soundtrack Tracklist, Limited Edition Vinyl Announced

New Disney Store Arrivals and Sales for October 14, 2014 (16 Items)

ABC to Air ‘Marvel: Pulp to Pop’ Chronicling 75 Years on November 4

.@originalFunko POP Marvel: Classic X-Men - Magneto Action Figure available from Amazon!

.@originalFunko POP Disney: Robin Hood - Robin Hood Action Figure available from Amazon! http://t.co/AIOZ7gqBLu #fb

#DisneyINFINITY Phineas & Ferb Toy Box Pack 63% Off http://t.co/rBX9R3Lhu0 @mmonogram #fb

Denizen: How Disney Populated San Fransokyo with Citizens ... and Animators http://t.co/UfPLyjypKZ $DIS #BigHero6

RT @CollectDST: @stitchkingdom The Infinity Gauntlet bank is actually a Monogram product, distributed by @PREVIEWSworld. Still cool!

@CollectDST @PREVIEWSworld thanks. I asked about it because I thought Monogram had it at SDCC but got confused answer. or I\'m just confused

New Disney Store Arrivals and Sales for October 17, 2014 (14 Items) http://t.co/fk1jI528Eq $DIS

WATCH: \'Feast\' Short Teaser http://t.co/bkRLzlU7my $DIS 2 #fb

WDI has filed notice of commencement for Peter Pan Queue - low voltage installation of interactive electronic equipment

New Disney Store Arrivals and Sales for October 16, 2014 (35 Items) http://t.co/IjAwx4GKLI $DIS 3 #fb

Walt Disney Animation Studios has released a new teaser video from Patrick Osborne\'s short, Feast, which will play before Big...