Words into Pigtures
Set designs went through an equally rigorous process - we even produced architectural drawings called "schematics" for each set. This is why Piggley's barn looks like a real, working barn. Unlike in 2D, in 3D it is very difficult to cheat when designing characters and sets, because they need to be purely functional. That means the characters need to have enough room to move within a set - to walk through doorways or sit in chairs. In 2D animation, this is often "cheated". For instance, a character may be standing outside a tent of a certain size, but when he goes inside, the interior is of a completely different scale. You can't get away with that in 3D.
During a field trip to Ireland, our production designer took a series of photographs of homes, roads, school houses, barns, farms, walls, towns and villages, rivers, woodlands - all of which were used as direct references by the pencil layout artist in designing the world the characters live in. After the layouts were approved, the art director and background painters, working digitally, painted up and textured the sets, first in 2D.
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