A First Mate Bares His Fangs

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/movies/creating-a-tiger-for-life-of-pi.html

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THE book “Life of Pi,” a contemplative story about a boy lost at sea with a tiger companion, is not the most obvious candidate for a film. There’s that tiger, for starters. But when Ang Lee set out to adapt Yann Martel’s acclaimed novel, he conceived an intricate plan for extensive visual effects.

Building a Predator by Bone, Muscle, Flesh and Fur

These images take a progressive look through the meticulous process that went into constructing the digital tiger. Artists developed each layer of the animal’s physical makeup almost as if they were working on a biology experiment.

They started with the skeleton, which they used to control basic movements (segments with common colors, top right, move together), then added muscle, skin and fur. More than a dozen artists were assigned to the fur alone, focusing, for example, on how light shimmered on it.

“We studied the reference and dialed up the muscle flexing,” Mr. Westenhofer said. “Tigers are really a mass of solid muscle surrounded by loose, baggy skin. And the way it moves and shakes and bounces around is really important to see.” He added that they got to a point where, in most animation projects, they would have considered their work done. But they continued for three more weeks, further refining the creature’s mannerisms. (In all the process took about a year.) Among the details fine-tuned were how his paws twitched as he shifted his weight and how he swallowed.

“It was these tiny things that, combined, made this really genuine, lifelike animal,” Mr. Westenhofer said. “But if you look at the individual things by themselves, they seem insignificant.