Rendering the darkness: glimpse on the LEGO Batman movie

Abstract

The technical and creative challenges of The LEGO Batman Movie motivated many changes to rendering at Animal Logic. The project was the first feature animation to be entirely rendered with the studio's proprietary path-tracer, Glimpse. Brick-based modelling, animation and destruction techniques taken to the extents of Gotham City required extraordinary scalability and control. The desire to separate complexity from artistic intent led to the development of a novel material composition system. Lensing and lighting choices also drove technical development for efficient in-render lens distortion, depth-of-field effects and accelerated handling of thousands of city and interior lights.