Pixar on Ratatouille’s tasty-looking food

There’s a splendid new section on Pixar’s website about how they shaded the food in Ratatouille:

The challenge of shading food for Ratatouille was to work with a stylized look that fits into our world, yet is still readable and recognizable as something appealing to eat. We, as humans, have a built-in sensory system to know what looks edible to our eyes and stomach. Finding that acceptable (and tasty) appearence was the main focus.
Ratatouille: Shading Food, pixar.com

My favorite bit: to make the baguettes look believable, they took the trouble “to compress air bubbles which were closer to the crust, then give a slight twist to the pattern of air bubbles, as often seen in real bread.”

Update: Turns out this is an excerpt from the 58-page Anyone Can Cook – Inside Ratatouille’s Kitchen. Read more…

One Response to “Pixar on Ratatouille’s tasty-looking food”

  1. Torley

    It appears some of this is an adaptation — a more delectable, easier-to-digest version of earlier technical explanations which appeared here: http://graphics.pixar.com/library/

    Thanx for sharing!