How Pixar Makes Animated Clothes Look Real (2020)

In Pixar's "Onward," two elf brothers turn their late father into a pair of pants. Their dad had the most technically complex costume Pixar's ever done (per their production notes). The challenge for the costume animation team was to make something that was appealing, funny, physically plausible, and look like a person at first glance - but ultimately behave like an actual lump of cloth. We focus on Dad's costume, since he's at the center of the story and his clothing posed a particular challenge to Pixar's character tailoring artists. It will be interesting to show how much animation/simulation work and creativity goes into a single outfit for a Pixar character.