
On Christmas day in the UK, BBC One delighted children nationwide with an animated adaptation of the much-loved picture book Stick Man, the tale of a happy-go-lucky father's epic journey to make it home in time for Christmas.
Martin Freeman, Hugh Bonneville and Jennifer Saunders lent their voices to the half-hour animated show produced by Magic Light Pictures. The show is available in the US to Amazon Prime members via SOVD. See the trailer here.
When they made the decision to produce the show, their fourth adaptation of a Julia Donaldson-written/Axel Scheffler-illustrated story, Magic Light opted to produce Stick Man entirely in CG, which presented some challenges in maintaining the tactile look of stop-motion models and real sets from the previous films. They turned to South African Animation Studio Triggerfish as their creative partner. We grabbed a few minutes with Triggerfish Producer Mike Buckland to learn how they went about it, specifically in terms of their approach to rendering.
What was the focus of your work on Stick Man?
Triggerfishs role on the project started with working with the Director Jeroen Jaspaert and Co-Director Daniel Snaddon to develop storyboards from the script. We then handled all the production design and art direction, the asset creation, character animation, lighting, rendering and compositing. Magic Light also managed the all the voice recording, postproduction, cusic and sound mix.
Why did Magic Pictures decide to do Stick Man in all CG?
The film is the fourth in a series, and distinctive style had been developed in the previous films based on Axels drawings and inspired by the tactile look of stop-motion models and sets. The films had actually utilized real sets over which they composited the CG character animation. The scope of Stick Man made it too expensive to build so many real model sets and characters, so the big challenge for us was to try an emulate this handmade approach to the whole film, but to do it all in CG. This meant we had to do a lot of work in sculpting, texturing, shading and lighting to achieve the look of physical models and lighting.
How did you approach rendering on this project?
We were using Softimage with the Arnold renderer and the StoA plug-in (Softimage to Arnold), and the ease of use and simplicity of Arnold render settings when trying to complete shots under production pressures was extremely helpful. We could achieve very good-looking results with a minimal amount of lights. We really love the way lights react in Arnold, and even with minimal light setups, we could produce beautiful results that feel natural. Although our look wasnt exactly physically accurate, all our lighting starts with a natural lighting approach. Arnold delivers that very quickly and beautifully, but it also allows you to make creative adjustments to achieve a specific look.
The lighters also appreciated the iterative progressive rendering that helped to speed up the lighting on a per-shot basis. Arnolds .tx converted texture files helped reduce render times considerably. We were able to render sets that were quite extensive and which incorporated a lot of assets with displacements to create the handmade' look, as well as many densely covered grassy surfaces thath required the rendering of many millions of strands. Despite extensive use of SSS shaders on our snowy scenes, we found that we could get noiseless renders comparatively quickly. We also made extensive use of the AOVs during the compositing process, which allowed us more flexibility in optimizing our render process and achieving the Directors specific vision for each shot.
What shaders did you use?
We used mostly the Arnold Standard shader. Skin_SSS was great for creating a snow shader, Sky Shader for reflection/refraction information, Hair Shader for strand rendering. Store in channel for custom aovs - that was particularly useful for the ocean foam, which relied on quite a lot work in the Comp suite to get the right look.
Any other notes on the production you'd like to share?
Triggerfish has a relationship with Magic Light that stretches back several years. (Their co-founder and producer) Michael Rose was kind enough to give us notes and advice on our script when we were in development on our first feature film, Adventures in Zambezia. So when they decided to produce Stick Man as a fully CG film and asked us to bid on it, we were very excited. We were already big admirers of their previous animated films in this series, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalos Child and Room on the Broom, which are beautifully crafted pieces of storytelling.
Images courtesy of Magic Light Pictures.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
17/06/2026
EVS has announced it has received the EcoVadis Gold Medal for sustainability performance, ranking among the top 5% of companies globally in the Technology/Mid-S...
17/06/2026
Chyron has released Weather 2.4, an update to its weather suite for broadcasters and meteorologists. The release focuses on enhancements to the DataFlow module,...
17/06/2026
VSiN, The Sports Betting Network, has announced the launch of Best Bets TV, a free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel. The 24/7 channel is currently avail...
17/06/2026
DAZN's Team Whistle and Snap Inc. have announced a creator program centered ...
17/06/2026
LiveU is providing video transmission technology for broadcasters, production companies, and public safety agencies across North America's busy Summer of So...
17/06/2026
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) has announced that Laurens Grant and Jacob Ullman have joined its Board of Directors. Chief of Staf...
17/06/2026
Akta, the AI-First SaaS video platform for modern broadcast and streaming operations, today announced that its video platform is now generally available on Orac...
17/06/2026
This recent graduate from Houston found inspiration in technical directing and now eyes a future career in sports production...
17/06/2026
Audio-Technica (booth C7959) arrives at InfoComm 2026 in Las Vegas with a slate ...
17/06/2026
SNS has published a guide addressing growing demand for AI-powered video indexing, transcription, facial recognition, and searchable metadata across media libra...
17/06/2026
Providius has announced Providius Direct, a workflow for investigating network i...
17/06/2026
NEP Group has announced the commercial availability of NEP Platform, a software ...
17/06/2026
A new white paper examining Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) and Reliable Interne...
17/06/2026
New research from subscription bundling platform Bango finds that younger sports fans are increasingly consuming sport through highlights, clips, and social med...
17/06/2026
SMPTE has announced that its complete Standards catalog is now freely available to the global media technology community, including all published SMPTE Standard...
17/06/2026
Harmonic has completed the sale of its Video Business to MediaKind for $145 mill...
17/06/2026
Omaha Productions will produce the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vega...
17/06/2026
New features, changes & bug fixes
SoundBridge have just released another update for their remote collaboration-focused DAW - reviewed here in SOS March 2026...
17/06/2026
Valve-based front end for digital & modelling rigs
The latest addition to Fryette's product range delivers a packed-down, pedalboard-friendly version of...
17/06/2026
GearExpo UK - 27 June 2026
Sound On Sound are proud to announce GearExpo UK, a major new recording and music technology exhibition in London! This is the bi...
17/06/2026
SAM monitoring line-up gains Dante and AES67 support
The latest expansion of Genelec's UNIO monitoring ecosystem introduces a new device that provides D...
17/06/2026
The R&S PR300 portable receiver from Rohde & Schwarz sets new standards in spect...
17/06/2026
Elt Group and Rohde & Schwarz sign a cooperation agreement to explore commercial...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
The Immersive Supervisor Emerges as Hollywood's Next Production Role
Brie Clayton June 17, 2026
0 Comments
Above image: On set live immersive revi...
17/06/2026
Vertical Musical Playback Shot with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton June 17, 2026
0 Comments
Large format sensor and DaVinci Resolve workflow used fo...
17/06/2026
DAZ 3D Launches New Game-Ready Character Assets Built for Modern Engines and Pro...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
17/06/2026
Montr al, Quebec, June 11, 2026 Kiloview, a leading provider of AV-over-IP and NDI -based video transmission solutions, today announced a distribution partner...
17/06/2026
Changsha, China, June 15, 2026 Kiloview officially announced the launch of U4 IP Video Dock, a compact IP video decoder and output dock designed to bring prof...
17/06/2026
Save 50% on All Ivory II Pianos and Collections
Were halfway through the year, and we're cutting prices in half for the Ivory II Summer Sale!
For a limite...
17/06/2026
Wednesday 17 June 2026
Two in three fans will connect to venue WiFi this World ...
17/06/2026
Visibility builds credibility - the tools you use every day, now visible on your LinkedIn profile Published on Jun 17, 2026 Categories: Company News, Product ...
17/06/2026
Transaction Positions Harmonic as a Pure-Play Broadband Company SAN JOSE, Calif. - June 17, 2026 - Harmonic Inc. (NASDAQ: HLIT), the worldwide leader in virtual...
17/06/2026
FOX Advertising To Launch Industry's First End-to-End Agentic Advertising Pl...
17/06/2026
How SGN is future-proofing critical national infrastructure with Arqiva Managed Connectivity.
When disruption becomes the norm As Storm Eunice tore across the ...
17/06/2026
The RT Concert Orchestra will bring the timeless music of The Beach Boys to aud...
17/06/2026
Calibr-Skaggs awarded $5.1M by NIH to develop long-acting hepatitis B virus therapy A new program aims to replace a daily HBV drug with once-monthly or even qua...
16/06/2026
Thomson's highly regarded expert-led online learning courses are now easier to access on the go via our new App.
Available now on Google Play Store, the J...
16/06/2026
Neumann.Berlin has released firmware version 2.0 for the MT 48 audio interface, adding plugin compatibility, expanded Dante networking options, broadcast encode...
16/06/2026
TVNewsCheck has announced that nominations are now open for its 2027 Women in Technology Awards, to be presented at NAB Show 2027 on Tuesday, April 6 in the Med...