Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1144162
s u m m e r 2 0 1 9 c g w 9 rigid and give shoulders more play. They also evolved the muscle simulation tools for better skin sliding and to include collisions with bones. The animators performed 63 different species of animals with 365 unique varia- tions. Seventeen were hero characters. The animals interact in intimate moments and stumble, fall, and swerve over each other in stampedes. A crowd system developed in SideFX's Houdini helped the team lay out the background action. "The first thing we tackled is a 15-min- ute sequence of Simba being chased through a canyon," Jones says. "Getting the wilde beests to feel right was difficult. We probably had 300 or 400 in one shot. We didn't want only run cycles, so we built an extensive library of turning, falling, stumbling movements that we could stitch together. The crowd system helped with the back- ground, but animators took over the fore- ground. The canyon is rocky and has ledges, so the animals had to catch their weight as they stumbled over rocks and other beasts." To light the skies over the vast savannas, the crew used the sun, something they couldn't do with Jungle Book, which was a stage-based shoot. "For this one, we decided to be true to nature and capture real sun values and real shadows, so we could re-create that lighting in the rendering," Newman says. "But, the light also had to be pleasing, so we worked a lot with Rob [Legato] and Caleb [De- schanel]. Rob might accent characters with the right type of light or put a tree in a shot to add the right shadow." Newman gives an example of a scene in which adult Simba confronts Scar, and a storm starts brewing. "We developed lights to add shape lighting to the characters, and we put a texture of clouds on the light source so it didn't look stage-lit," he says. "But, everything we did was grounded. We always made sure we weren't using something too glorious; that every sky wasn't captured at a perfect angle. On a live-action shoot, you might run out of light, but you have to keep going. We tried to create those imperfections. The biggest challenge was managing the rendering. I calculated that if one machine rendered this movie, it would take centuries. So, the logistics of rendering the show – which shots to render first, when to load them onto the farm – was a big one for us. Every frame was so complex. We were doing every single shot full CG." LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE "This is a project of firsts," Ferrara says. "The first time shooting every shot in VR. The first photoreal computer graphics to the degree that Jon wanted – to have everything look like nature and real animals." It is, in fact, the first photorealistic CG feature filmed in VR to look and feel like a live-action nature film. "It improved everything," Legato says of the ability for the filmmakers to shoot CG characters and environments as if they were live-action scenes. "The photorealistic depiction of Lion King feels like a live-action movie because we used every tool of live action. We were luckier, though. We could move the sun and create a live-action feel. We didn't have to wait for the right time to shoot. It's magical. The technology allows us to further the art form. But, it's the con- tribution of everyone that makes the whole feel correct." Barbara Robertson (BarbaraRR@comcast.net) is an award-winning writer and a contributing editor for CGW. THE MPC TEAM CONSIDERED THE MICROSCOPIC STRUCTURE OF HAIR TO DEVELOP NEW SHADERS AND STAYED WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF NATURAL PIGMENTATION. ANIMATORS PERFORMED RAFIKI WITH SLIGHTLY SLOWER MOVEMENTS THAN THE QUICK-MOVING MANDRILL HAS IN THE WILD.