Illumination Mac Guff is a French animated feature production company owned by Illumination, a division of Universal Pictures. Based in Paris, France, the company was created in 2011 as part of Universal's purchase deal of the animation arm of French animation and VFX company Mac Guff. It is responsible for the animation on Illumination's feature-length animated films and associated short films, most notably the Despicable Me franchise..
Reinventing the humanoid character build pipeline at Blue Sky Studios presented several opportunities to create synergy between different processes, all centering around the concept of creating and maintaining a standardized Universal Mesh. The automation of rig argument placement, the building of rigging tools that use aspects of character geometry as inputs, the separation of character data from assets, and the creation of a stylized simulation-based approach to deform animated characters were all influenced by this base Universal Mesh. Ultimately, this approach offered new ways to get the most out of our character pipeline.
