In this interview, Pixar shading and grooming artist Markus Kranzler discusses work on Hoppers after Elemental, including time in Pixar’s Tools Department, a layered approach for wet fur, and how design readability can trump anatomical accuracy when deadlines exist and the cameras cut fast.

Markus Kranzler is a Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios, with credits as a character shading and groom artist on Inside Out 2, Elemental, Turning Red, Luca, and Soul, plus earlier Pixar work including volumetric clouds on The Good Dinosaur and set dressing on Finding Dory.

Before joining Pixar in 2015, Kranzler worked in lighting, lookdev and rendering roles at MPC and Trixter, with film credits including Skyfall, Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel.

DP: Hi Markus, it’s been a while since Elemental. What did you do on Hoppers, and why the role change?

Markus Kranzler: One of the main differences was that I was working on solid characters that weren’t dynamic fluids. :D  One of the first projects I worked on this show was actually not in my department, but in the “Tools Department”. That is where all the geniuses sit that create our software, plugins and shaders.

Since a big part of the movie shows animals in and out of water, I was helping them figure out a simpler way to make fur look wet without having to adjust each character’s shader to make it look wet. We ended up achieving that by layering a wet shader on top, which then affects certain lighting lobes on the fur shader. 

Also on this show, besides shading, I was grooming some of the animals. That’s what we call creating and styling the hair or fur on a character. I had done some grooming in the past, on my graduation short “The Present”, but this was the first time I actually got to groom at Pixar. 

Another difference was that I wrapped and rejoined the show about six times. Most people come on for a single stint and move on, but they kept bringing me back for a couple of weeks at a time. This was mostly after the majority of the shading and grooming artists had wrapped, so I would help crank through new assets or tackle larger waves of fixes as they came in.

DP: With Hoppers being set in a natural environment, how did that change your approach to grooming? 

Markus Kranzler: Even though the looks are different, the characters in Hoppers are strongly stylised in their own way. For us, it’s always about looks that are believable, not necessarily physically correct. Similar to most of our movies we take nature as inspiration, but we put our own spin on it. This can affect certain departments differently from others. In this film because the story heavily depends on comedic timing, I would say that the environment had controlled detail to guide the viewer’s eyes and the characters were built out of simple, readable shapes with a tactile feel similar to felted toys. 

DP: In a stylised film like Hoppers, you’re always balancing plausible physics with deliberate exaggeration. How do you decide how “real” hair and fur should behave versus how “cartoon” it should read?

Markus Kranzler: It’s all about the story! The first question we ask is: Does it serve the story better if things behave and look more realistic, or more stylised? Then we go from there. On Hoppers, the main criteria were to make the characters look endearing, comedic, but also instantly recognisable for the fast cuts. 

DP: How much of that balance is determined by art direction, and how much do you discover later through animation and shot work?

Markus Kranzler: It is usually a very collaborative and fluid process. In most cases, we have a pretty solid foundation coming from art direction, but as we move from 2D into 3D we adjust as we explore and learn things.

DP: How early were you involved in character preparation and design decisions for the protagonists and key characters?

Markus Kranzler: On this film, I joined fairly late. So most of the key characters were already being worked on. Most workflows and the design language had been figured out at that point. 

DP: On the design side, did grooming constraints ever influence decisions like hair length, density, silhouette, or “how much the hair is allowed to move”?

Markus Kranzler: Actually, yes. I worked on the skunks, and they are a great example of such a decision. One of the main features of a skunk (besides it’s smell) is its big bushy tail. In nature, the anatomical part of the tail is very skinny and the whole volume comes from it’s fluffy fur. But simulating that would not only be more expensive, but maintaining a fluffy, instantly recognisable shape would also be trickier. So we “cheated” and increased the tail’s volume to grow the hair by quite a bit. Thereby reducing the length of the individual hair curves. 

DP: Hoppers has characters that can read as more animal-like in one context and more human-like in another, depending on the scene and how we’re meant to interpret them. Did you get explicit direction to shift the exterior presentation of characters for that? 

Markus Kranzler: The main change when we see the animals from a human’s perspective is their eyes. We called them “Dot Eyes”. Since we as humans read a lot of expressions from the eyes, that shift alone made a big enough difference. We only had to make minor tweaks to the model and grooming to account for the slight difference in that region. 

DP: Tooling question: was this largely one grooming system end-to-end, or did you use multiple systems for different needs?
Markus Kranzler: We have our own proprietary grooming tool within our in-house animation software, “Presto,” called “Pele”. We use that for both animal fur and human hair, and from there it feeds into our standard shading pipeline. 

DP: For artists trying to achieve a similar look, what are the first conceptual steps you take when approaching a new groom, for example, a beaver?

Markus Kranzler: First I need to understand the art direction. For us, the guideline comes mostly from 2D drawings. Before we start, we have a kick off meeting with the production designer, art director, and/or character designer. In that kick-off, we go over the general aesthetic of the film, who the character is and what they do in the movie, and then break apart each component.

Often we will also get some photographs of real-world examples that serve as inspiration, but we clarify what we want to preserve and how we want to diverge from reality. Once I have that understanding and reference material, it’s very similar to how one would approach a photo-realistic asset. E.g. drawing textures, placing and grooming the hair curves, adjusting the specularity, tweaking displacement etc. And you do a lot of iterations.

DP: Reference for SOME of these animals is abundant. How do you sort, filter, and prioritize reference when translating real-world anatomy into a stylised film language?

Markus Kranzler: That is a pretty common and important discussion that comes up in meetings and reviews. As I mentioned, our guideline is usually a 2D drawing, which inherently is a simplification of something by an artist. And then a shading artist like me interprets it to create a different version of it. It’s a bit like a game of telephone. Sometimes the message gets jumbled up. It does get easier with time, as all parties gain more experience in communicating and interpreting the intentions. But sometimes that can also lead to new discoveries that improve results. So it’s always a learning curve, but that makes it exciting and refreshing every time. 

DP: Looking back, do you have a favourite character to work on, and why?

Markus Kranzler: My answer probably won’t be very exciting since I didn’t work on any of the main characters, but I would say my favourites are the classroom turtle we see at the beginning of the movie. Not a lot of grooming there, but I find it adorable. And then I made a character we called “Janky Beaver”. It’s one of the prototypes of the observation robots we see in a short time-lapse. You barely notice it in the movie, but I like it because it’s a great example of the wacky humour of the film.

Elementary!

The post How Pixar Cheats a Skunk Tail first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Digital painters can now experience lighting effects that until now belonged in high-end 3D: Escape Motions has announced Rebelle 8, and its flagship feature, RealShader, aims to change how oil painting feels on screen. With real-time ray-traced soft shadows and new environment maps, digital brush strokes now cast their own convincing, photorealistic shadows.

The update is due at the end of Q3 2025, with Early Access for existing users launching in late June or July. This release is positioned as one of the largest in the history of the product, and it is targeted at both fine artists and production professionals looking for the tactile feedback of thick oil paint—without needing to open a window.

RealShader: From Flat Strokes to Photoreal Surfaces

Rebelle 8 Pro’s new RealShader doesn’t just simulate light—it actually reflects it, with real-time calculations based on genuine photo-based environment maps. Artists can choose between two photographic environment maps—Environment 1 (for strong reflection effects) and Environment 2 (for a subtler, more natural gloss). There’s also a Legacy mode for users who want Rebelle 7’s familiar flat look.

These aren’t generic 3D shaders: they’re specifically tuned for the complex way light scatters and reflects on oil paint, complete with variable reflection and granulation for every stroke. For anyone compositing digital oils or building assets for stylized cinematics, the result is a paint surface that finally reacts like the real thing—at least on screen.

SoftShadows: Ray Tracing Right on the Canvas

In a move that most GPU renderers would envy, Rebelle 8 integrates real-time ray tracing directly into the canvas. Every brush stroke, no matter how thick or thin, will cast soft shadows onto the paint below, using accurate color and material data. White and bright strokes reflect light most strongly; darker, richer tones absorb light and throw out deeper, richer shadows.

The upshot is instant, tactile visual feedback while you work. Strokes sit “on top” of each other convincingly, and subtle changes in shape, color, or impasto result in believable interaction with the simulated environment light.

NanoPixel 2: Upscale to the Limit

One of Rebelle’s original selling points—massive upscaling without losing brush fidelity—gets a huge technical boost in Rebelle 8. The upgraded NanoPixel 2 engine can now export paintings up to 20×20 their working size, compared to 4×4 in Rebelle 7 Pro. That means artists can export work up to 32,000×32,000 pixels in a single pass (TIFF format allows unlimited export size).

This makes it practical to produce ultra-high-resolution, print-ready files that preserve every brush hair and every granulation map, with no visible aliasing even on massive canvas prints or projected surfaces.

Workflow Tweaks for Real Production

The changes in Rebelle 8 go beyond surface effects. The release also includes a slate of workflow-focused upgrades:

• View at Print Size: See a 1:1 print preview on screen, critical for print prepress and color proofing.
• Paint Selection: Intuitive stroke-based selection for masking and correction.
• Advanced PSD Export: Better support for Photoshop and post workflows.
• WebSocket Input: Open the door for remote control and custom automation.
• Dedicated Symmetry Brush Engine: Mirror painting made more precise.
• Smooth Scaling: Zoom without aliasing, even at high magnifications.
• Instant Paper Preview: Preview and swap digital paper textures on the fly.
• Configurable Layer Settings: New options for reflectivity, granulation, and blending.

These are incremental but highly practical improvements that show Escape Motions’ commitment to serving the real needs of working artists and studios.

Amazing Rebelle 8 painting by Carles. What will be the first thing you paint when you have access to Rebelle 8?

Early access will start later this month. pic.twitter.com/bLuGts0WVR

— Escape Motions (@escapemotions) July 8, 2025

Pricing, Upgrades, and Early Access

Rebelle 8’s Early Access will be available in late June or July for existing users. Anyone who purchased Rebelle 7 from May 28, 2025 onwards will be eligible for a free upgrade to the equivalent edition of Rebelle 8 when it launches.

Pricing for new users has not been disclosed at time of writing; details will be published via Escape Motions once available.

After a year and a half of dedicated development, we’re thrilled to announce that Rebelle 8 is coming at the end of Q3 this year! Rebelle 8 will render the depth and realism of traditional oil painting like never before, bringing a whole new dimension to your canvas. #rebelle8 pic.twitter.com/LWFpUI3J7k

— Escape Motions (@escapemotions) June 11, 2025

Production-Ready? Test Before You Trust

While RealShader and NanoPixel 2 promise much, every digital painter, concept artist, or VFX art lead should run these new features through their own production tests before integrating them into final pipelines. As with any significant rendering change, subtle differences in shadow, reflection, and export can affect compositing, color grading, and print output.

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The post Oil Gets Real: Rebelle 8’s RealShader and SoftShadows Put Ray Tracing on the Canvas first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Animating secondary motion—tails, cloth, ponytails, antennae—has long been a tedium familiar to anyone wielding Maya’s animation toolkit. Enter PuppetSoul’s new, free add-on, PUPbuildDynamic, which automates these overlapping motions on joint chains with as much control as animators demand. Created by Cédric Nicolas and released by Soul of Puppet, PUPbuildDynamic is compatible with Maya 2023, 2024, and 2025, with special support for 2025 via a custom compiled node.

Two Flavors: All Maya, or With a Bit of Binary

PUPbuildDynamic comes in two configurations. The “Muppic” version relies solely on standard Maya nodes, making it cross-compatible and robust on any supported Maya version—ideal for users who prefer to avoid plugins.

For those seeking advanced dynamics, the compiled PUPdynaNode unlocks features like collision detection, wind, support for non-standard playback rates (such as 12fps, for all you stop-motion fans), and faster simulation. The node is available free and, according to the developer, works best on Maya 2025.

Animator Control Without FX Overhead

The plug-in’s controls are aimed squarely at animators, not FX artists. Users can adjust stiffness, damping, and mass per joint chain directly from the familiar Maya interface. Collisions, wind, and gravity are handled by the plugin if the compiled node is present, all without stepping outside the classic rig-animate workflow. There’s no need to bake, re-target, or invent workarounds: just assign, tweak, and preview in real-time.

Feature Film Pedigree, Without the Feature Film Price

This isn’t hobbyware. PuppetSoul’s dynamic system descends from tools already deployed on features like Richard the Stork 2. What’s new is its release as a standalone, cost-free download for anyone with a current Maya license. PuppetSoul’s full, commercial toolkit remains available on request for productions needing even deeper rigging integration, but the add-on gives the essentials away for nothing.

Easy Download, Easy Install

The plugin, documentation, and example rigs are provided via the official download page, with clear instructions for both “Muppic” (node-free) and “PUPdynaNode” (plugin) versions. No online registration or personal data harvesting is required; just click, install, and go. If you’re a stickler for stability, stick to the all-Maya node version; if you want physics and performance, try the compiled node.

License, Support, and the Usual Caveats

PUPbuildDynamic is free for use with no visible licensing traps or watermarking. Support, as is often the case with free tools, comes via the Tech-Artists.org thread and a contact link on the PuppetSoul site. The author encourages users to provide feedback and report bugs—this is a tool made by production artists, for production artists.

Closing Note

Automating secondary motion with real-time, tweakable parameters—without reaching for a full FX setup—should appeal to anyone tired of keyframe jiggling or endless corrective animation. As always, test in your own pipeline before greenlighting for hero shots.

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Link Citations

PuppetSoul official download page

The post Maya’s Jiggle Assistant: PUPbuildDynamic Does Your Secondary Motion first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.