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"The Life of Pi": Computer Graphic Animation Virtually Indistinguishable from Nature

12/22/2012

On December 22, 2012 my wife Trish and I went to see the Life of Pi, an American adventure drama film based on Yann Martell's 2001 novel directed by Ang Lee and distributed by 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles. There has, of course, been much written about this imaginative novel and the film. With respect to this database the story line, and the inspirational aspects of the novel and film are not strictly relevant. What was of particular interest to me was the revelation only after I had seen the film that most of the scenes with the tiger were done entirely by computer graphic animation. During the film every image—every scene in which the tiger appeared— appeared to be 100% real. No computer graphic animation in any previous film that I had seen had achieved this level of realism.

"Visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer was no stranger to animal-oriented projects when he came aboard Ang Lee's 'Life of Pi' to realize a digital photorealistic tiger. However, the film presented challenges beyond merely creating the beast. In 'Pi,' the tiger, oddly named Richard Parker, is one of the two main characters. He and Pi Patel, played by Suraj Sharma, are castaways who survive 227 days on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. 

"Westenhofer began his work by bringing four real tigers to Taiwan, where the film was partly shot, in order to obtain very precise animation references with the goal of making the animal as real-looking as possible.  

"According to Westenhofer, even the most skilled animators in the world need visual references. 'A tiger is a solid mass of muscle with a loose bag of skin surrounding it, like a cloth that is draped over it,' he says. 'We really studied the tiny nuances such as the shoulder ripple that occurs when he shifts his weight. By having the reference clips, we kept true to how the animal would react.'

"After training and rehearsing with the tigers for five weeks, the production completed 23 shots of a real tiger around the lifeboat where most of the story takes place. The film's remaining 148 tiger shots would be realized with advanced computer graphics technology. In the film, the real tigers are indistinguishable from the digital ones.  

"The lead vfx shop on the tiger shots, Rhythm and Hues, spent full year on research and development, building upon its already vast knowledge of CG animation as it created the fearsome Richard Parker. 'Forty percent of our efforts were (born of) new technology,' which was used create 'the hair, the way it lights, the muscle and skin system,' Westenhofer says" (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118063581/?refcatid=13, accessed 12-23-2012).  

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