Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGDMissing Link won the Golden Globe award for Best Animated Feature - every single facial expression in this stop-motion movie, totaling over 106,000, was printed in 3D. The LAIKA studio had already employed 3D printers for animated films before, but Missing Link saw them make use of Cuttlefish, the 3D printer driver developed by Fraunhofer IGD. The adventure movie starring the lonely Sasquatch was also nominated for the Oscar® for Best Animated Feature.
The greatest challenge was the use of a large number of colors to create highly lifelike models of the adventurers, researchers, and Mr. Link himself. Every tone had to exactly match the one seen in the previous frame. And this is where Cuttlefish was in its element. Brian McLean, LAIKA’s Director of Rapid Prototype, explains: “We have been using 3D printers for stop-motion productions since Coraline, LAIKA’s very first feature film. For our latest production, Missing Link, we deployed Fraunhofer IGD technology, as it offers us unique color consistency and geometric precision. The combination of Cuttlefish software and Stratasys J750 hardware enabled us to create the most sophisticated 3D color textures ever produced.”
Cuttlefish makes it possible to work with many print materials simultaneously to precisely reproduce the geometry, colors, and subtle color transitions of the original, and to simulate the print in advance on-screen. In 2018, the developers successfully took the next hurdle: Cuttlefish can now also print translucencies, i.e., partially or completely transparent materials.