Silhouette sketching on "inside out

In hand-drawn 2D animation, artists have direct control over the image. Silhouette lines are drawn with a specific intent, e.g. an elbow might be drawn as a curve, or with a sharp angle. By contrast, in 3D animation, direct silhouette control is often lost. Animators pose a 3D model with an abstract control like "elbow bend" and the resulting silhouette is whatever the character rigging provides. Our goal was to create a tool to enable our animators to be able to sculpt the silhouettes quickly, in context, without requiring special expertise or assistance from riggers and modelers. During "Inside Out" this new sketch-based tool saw heavy use for modifying silhouettes of hero character's faces and bodies as well as for fine-tuning cloth simulation results.