Can anyone tell me what is the hair animation workflow in Films like The lion king and Jungle Books?

adityasg21

I always wonder how do people animate hair, I am not much into animation in 3D so i have not much knowledge about the hair system, but I do know that in games they use hair cards and stuff like that but question is how does animate hair which is so high poly like in films. Do they rig them, if so how?

Neox

this is usually done through simulation of grooms. so individual hairs are being rendered, normally bound to guides which get simulated.

which is actually stuff that is coming for game sooner or later

houdini is taking over on that end, but maya is still strong.

look into xgen and yeti on mayas end, maybe ornatrix but i have no idea how spread out that is

Ruz

most people start doing that but at some point just give up and tear out their own hair in frustration

My own workflow involves using zbrush to do the sculpt, ie to prodce the curves, then use either blender or xgen and use the curves from z

as guides

oglu

MGear does have a great little helper for xGen. I used it on my latest project. 

https://youtu.be/zX7FR5hVt6w

icegodofhungary

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/175/asset/a13-kaur.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/167/asset/moanaHair_abstract1.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/152/asset/eurographics2016Fur_Smaller.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/106/asset/SKINNY-SIG.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/121/asset/hairPipeline.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/8/asset/artDirectHair11.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/56/asset/rapzHairSim.pdf

https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/24/asset/2_DualScatteringImplementation.pdf

Jungle Book and Lion King are more on the realism side of things but I think they probably still use other Disney tech and methods that they use for all hair. Seems to be something about simulating bendy rods or something.

Bellsey

The Jungle Book and The Lion King were both done by MPC. The grooming was created using their own technology - Furtility. Everything they've done since 10,000BC up to and including the The Lion King and...ahem..Cats... has been done with this tech. Simulation I think might have been done in Houdini but I can't recall. Not sure now if they still use Furtility or if they migrated it into Houdini.

There's some Siggraph talks here:

https://www.mpc-rnd.com/furtility-robust-hair-styling/?t=furtility
https://www.mpc-rnd.com/furtility-dynamic-grooming-for-wolfman/?t=groom