Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1144162
8 cgw s u m m e r 2 0 1 9 final animation and high-resolution render- ing with muscle and hair simulation. The process began with Jones and a team of previs animators who created, first, a previs-level pass based on storyboards from the story department, a rough blocking pass, and then Favreau-approved animation ready for the camera stage. "Usually we give previs animators individ- ual shots," Jones says, "but for this process they had a chunk of work – 30 seconds to a minute of animation that represented the flow of the scene so Caleb [Deschanel] and Rob [Legato] could put the camera any- where. Some were even longer – 4 minutes. It was pretty crazy." Fieen animators worked on previs in MPC's London Studio, and another eight to 10 were in Los Angeles. Oen the scenes were readied in London and adjusted in LA. "Our process was similar to that of a live-action movie where you have actors on stage delivering dialog to block a scene, then you set the camera position," Jones explains. "We would block the scene so any camera position would work, then we could tweak it." The animators gave the animals walk cycles so VR viewers could move them with joysticks. But the rocky terrain oen required separate animation. "Jumping down off a rock was too awkward," Jones says. "It would detract from the storytelling if you could feel the game engine." Previs animators working by the stage could react quickly to notes and make adjustments. If Favreau wanted something different aer the edit, the crew could pull up the files for a reshoot in VR. "We'd wait to turn over sequences until we had a complete edit that Jon signed off on all packaged up with the 3D data," Jones says. CREATING THE PERFORMANCES Jones had already faced down the issue of lip sync on realistic animals for Jungle Book, and many on the crew also knew Favreau's preferences from working on the previous film. "Obviously, we don't want the animals' lips to flap," Jones says. "Jon wanted the lips to never move unnaturally. He didn't want to see phonemes and pucker shapes that lions could not do. He said it's better to have people look at the eyes and take in the performance than to have them stare at distracting lips." That meant the animators had to create a dialog performance without using mouth shapes. "We discovered we could do a lot with ar- ticulation," Jones says. "If you get the muzzle right and the corners of the mouth moving at the right time, you buy that it's real. Some actors don't even move their lips much." Two animation supervisors, Gabriele Zucchelli and Stephen Enticott, and six lead animators working under them, each managing a seven-animator team, created the performances in London, Bangalore, and LA. Each lead was assigned one or two main characters to help develop the rig and walk cycles that animators would use as a guide. For reference, the animators had live-action footage shot in Kenya and at Animal Kingdom. They also filmed some voice actors delivering dialog. But not for lip sync. "We wanted to see the spontaneity between Seth Rogan [Pumbaa] and Billy Eichner [Timon]," Jones says. "We didn't block the movement, but we could find the feelings between the warthog and meerkat. We could see moments of eye contact and the comedic timing between them." More generally, animators would look at the actors delivering dialog and then try to find clips with animals having the same attitude. "We even looked at slow motion," Jones says. "Jon wanted his film to feel as real as a BBC documentary but with animals that talk. A lot of times, the BBC doesn't shoot in real time. They oen shoot animals walking slower, and we get used to that. It gives the lions weight and presence. And, that was also especially important for the hyenas. They're constantly looking around, ready to dart at a moment's notice, but we needed the opposite for most of them. We needed the queen to feel strong. We also slowed down Rafiki, the mandrill. Mandrills are small and tend to move fast." NEW TOOLS In addition to new tools developed for the virtual production, the technical teams at MPC created and improved tools for post- production – in particular, a hair shader. "We looked at the available fur shaders but decided to develop our own using the new technology in RenderMan," Newman says. "We researched the color of hair, making sure artists stayed within the realm of natural pigmentation for the animals. We tried to understand from a microscop- ic level how the structure of hair strands varies for different species of animals. We knew Jon wanted to push the bar with everything." The technical teams gave the animators faster rigs with "limb lock" to make elbows NEW MUSCLE SIMULATION TOOLS HELPED SCAR AND HIS PACK OF HYENAS MOVE REALISTICALLY.