<P> Bird came to Pixar with the lineup of the story's family members worked out: a mom and dad, both suffering through the dad's midlife crisis; a shy teenage girl; a cocky ten - year - old boy; and a baby . Bird had based their powers on family archetypes . After several failed attempts to cast Edna Mode, Bird took on her voice role himself . It was an extension of the Pixar custom of tapping in - house staff whose voices came across particularly well on scratch dialogue tracks . During production, Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli visited Pixar and saw the film's story reels . When Bird asked if the reels made any sense or if they were just "American nonsense," Miyazaki replied, through an interpreter, "I think it's a very adventurous thing you are trying to do in an American film ." </P> <P> Upon Pixar's acceptance of the project, Brad Bird was asked to bring in his own team for the production . He brought up a core group of people he worked with on The Iron Giant . Because of this, many 2 - D artists had to make the shift to 3 - D, including Bird himself . Bird found working with CG "wonderfully malleable" in a way that traditional animation is not, calling the camera's ability to easily switch angles in a given scene "marvelously adaptable ." He found working in computer animation "difficult" in a different way than working traditionally, finding the software "sophisticated and not particularly friendly ." Bird wrote the script without knowing the limitations or concerns that went hand - in - hand with the medium of computer animation . As a result, this was to be the most complex film yet for Pixar . The film's characters were designed by Tony Fucile and Teddy Newton, whom Bird had brought with him from Warner Bros. Like most computer - animated films, The Incredibles had a year - long period of building the film from the inside out: modeling the exterior and understanding controls that work face and body--the articulation of the character--before animation could even begin . Bird and Fucile tried to emphasize the graphic quality of good 2 - D animation to the Pixar team, who'd only worked primarily in CG . Bird attempted to incorporate teaching from Disney's Nine Old Men that the crew at Pixar had "never really emphasized ." </P> <P> For the technical crew members, the film's human characters posed a difficult set of challenges . Bird's story was filled with elements that were difficult to animate with CGI back then . Humans are widely considered to be the most difficult things to execute in animation . Pixar's animators filmed themselves walking to better grasp proper human motion . Creating an all - human cast required creating new technology to animate detailed human anatomy, clothing, and realistic skin and hair . Although the technical team had some experience with hair and cloth in Monsters, Inc. (2001), the amount of hair and cloth required for The Incredibles had never been done by Pixar until this point . Moreover, Bird would tolerate no compromises for the sake of technical simplicity . Where the technical team on Monsters, Inc. had persuaded director Pete Docter to accept pigtails on Boo to make her hair easier to animate, the character of Violet had to have long hair that obscured her face; it was integral to her character . Violet's long hair, which was extremely difficult to animate, was only successfully animated toward the end of production . In addition, animators had to adapt to having hair underwater and blowing through the wind . Disney was initially reluctant to make the film because of these issues, feeling a live - action film would be preferable, though Lasseter vetoed this . </P> <P> The Incredibles not only dealt with the trouble of animating CG humans, but also many other complications . The story was bigger than any prior story at the studio, was longer in running time, and had four times the number of locations . Supervising technical director Rick Sayre noted that the hardest thing about the film was that there was "no hardest thing," alluding to the amount of new technical challenges: fire, water, air, smoke, steam, and explosions were all additional to the new difficulty of working with humans . The film's organizational structure could not be mapped out like previous Pixar features, and it became a running joke to the team . Sayre said the team adopted "Alpha Omega," where one team was concerned with building modeling, shading and layout and another dealt with final camera, lighting, and effects . Another team, dubbed as the character team, digitally sculpted, rigged, and shaded the characters, and a simulation team was responsible for developing simulation technology for hair and clothing . There were 781 visual effects shots in the film, and they were quite often visual gags, such as the window shattering when Bob angrily shuts the car door . In addition, the effects team improved their modeling of clouds, using volumetric rendering for the first time . </P>

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