Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 is the sequel to the first Pixar CGI animation film Toy Story. Just like its predecessor, Toy Story 2 focuses around the secret life of toys who become alive when humans are not around. The film was originally planned as a direct-to-video sequel, but Disney decided to create a theatrical movie after seeing the impressive work-in-progress.

Animation Style
Toy Story 2 uses a fully 3-D CGI animation for both the animated world and its characters. While the characters exhibit a highly naturalistic style of motion, their designs are overall very iconic. Effectively, the toys appear to move how one would expect a toy to move. The iconic nature of the toys' faces allows the characters to feel more like anthropomorphic inanimate objects than miniature photorealistic humans. Not only would it have been very hard to successfully depict the toys photorealistically, but it would have seemed much less toy-like. The textures used throughout the movie are generally shiny, plasticine, and free from any imperfections, all attributes that are usually associated with toys.

The backgrounds used aim to be more photorealsitic and detailed than the characters. This helps add to the realistic feel of the movie because it provides a severe contrast between the plastic-like nature of the toys and the more graphic world that mimics the world of the viewer. It is also easier to project emotions and human attributes onto the characters because of the masking effect. As Scott McCloud reasons in Understanding Comics, it is much easier to read the emotions of a stick figure than mediocre portrait (McCloud 36). Similarly, having highly iconic characters in a more realistic world makes it easier for the viewer to read the seemingly simple characters' emotions and place themselves in the shoes of the characters.

Character Creation
In order to make a CGI character appear life-life, the action of the character must be driven by its covnitive processes, like intelligence, personality, and emotion. Because of this, the realism of this movie is not just based on increased computing power and perfect shaders or textures. Much of it relies on on the art that drives the characters movements and facial expressions.

The following are five key principles of cartoon character animation that were originally explained by John Lasseter in 1987 (Porter and Susman 28). They are based on ideas developed and used by Walt Disney. These are still regularly employed in Pixar's movies, including Toy Story 2.

Squash and stretch
 * The animator must determine the mass and flexibility of the characters. To make this more explicit, anything that is "alive" should show a lot of movement and flexibility during an action.  This helps both create the physics of the animated world and a sense of timing and anticipation.

Timing
 * The animator has to convey body characteristics because the characters don't have intrinsic weight or musculature. The timing used in movement determines the force behind each movement.  Proper timing makes ideas more readable and realistic.

Anticipation
 * The animator must make sure that the audience understands all actions. To do this the animator must think about the preparation of an action, the action itself, and the termination of the action.  By exaggerating the anticipation, the audience focuses more on the action and enjoys it more.

Staging
 * All ideas must be very clear to the audience. The animator must use the camera, lighting, and layout to stage each shot in a clear way.  Typically, only one idea is conveyed at a time in order to focus the viewer on one critical part of the screen.  This makes personalities identifiable, expressions recognizable, and action understandable.

Exaggeration
 * Exaggeration is done by cutting to the heart of an idea, determining the reason for the idea, and amplifying it. This should change the audience's response to an action, character, or mood.  However, this must be done subtlety so the viewer does not realize the idea is unrealistic.