MPC Film - Creating Scar - Characters of The Lion King

To create Scar, the team began with referencing concept art to guide
the design of the character. The modelling team used this art and photography of lions to find Scar’s shapes and form. After the modelling process, the groom work, rigging and shading began at an early
stage, in parallel with render tests showing the character with fur and textures. The rigging tools continually developed as the project went along, from the real time virtual production rigs, to detailed muscle and skin workflows.

The animation and rigging teams worked together to build on previous systems. Focus was placed on Scar’s nuances from his subtle facial animation, realistic snarls and wrinkles to what happens to the skin and fur as his claws retract. A high level of detail was placed on his eyes and the skin surrounding them, the team even brought in veterinary specialists to learn specificity about the structure. Muscle simulation tools were developed to have greater connectivity with Scar’s skeleton, this allowed us to collide soft tissue with skeleton which helped to preserve correct anatomy and volume.

To make Scar’s fur look as lifelike as possible, a ground-up rewrite of the studio’s fur shader was worked on, as well as melanin-based colour palettes for the artists to use. Groom FX simulations were developed to create realistic effects for wind and rain interactions.

For Scar’s animation, the team studied hundreds of hours-worth of reference clips from Planet Earth, a shoot in Kenya and footage taken at Animal Kingdom to achieve a new level of detail in terms of the characters performance. Scar was entirely key frame animated and crafted entirely by hand. Human facial muscles are very different to that of a Lion’s and so Scar’s facial animation required a great deal of artistic judgment to convey his emotions without losing the realism of a Lion. The animation process was very time consuming, requiring numerous iterations to get to the right level of performance and believability.

[Evening.Cicada]

Even if we weren’t a fan of the remake . You gotta admit. The CGI and visuals are OUTSTANDING

[sicilia]

1:47 this honestly looks so amazing it really looks like a real lion

[laurenfitzgerald]

i cannot imagine what it takes to render this whole movie

[Vaxine]

Whoever did the skinning n rigging did a beautiful job! Bravo!

[junejuly]

It takes the passion to go into animation and to do something like this.

[ellie_bells]

I give a huge respect whoever animated this :0

[vigneshwaranms]

One of the most underrated animation work.. This is the first time I can really see the expressions in the face of the animated characters and most realistic talking animals which didn't look artificial or awkward.

[sirgoose]

I have never in my life seen such realistic movements in any animation before. Top-notch quality and pure perfection!

[RSpudieD]

AMAZING! They're so realistic and move so fluidly!

[devotedz]

Think about making this all and then your computer accidently deletes it all.

[earthyandfree]

I would love to see a full length documentary about the process of making this movie. It’s incredible

[xfabri_starx]

0:31 For everybody that say the 2019 characters don´t have expressions.

[whynotanyting]

I can't deny the amazing technology and artistry that went into creating this. I just hope it gets used for more than a live action adaptation.

[eddiex]

i have to agree that looks very realistic, but i dont know why Aslan can express more emotions and it feels more "alive" than a lot of the characters in the lion king

[kamatchisevalingam]

The CG looks excellent and very much like real Lion

[Tezuartz]

Everyone hates the new lion king remake. I guess it's because none of the characters look like the original but I hope they realize the remake is going for more realism in lions instead of cartoony

[jeppetofft]

1:45
The tongue and the teeth are intersecting.

[adityasajeev]

This kinda work is beyond anyone's Praising, Just Speechless !

[nerdherbs]

This is so much hard work of talented Modeling, Texturing, Rigging, Skining and Anaimation Artists

[itsthatYEStoogoodguy]

And of course, there are many stupid people who are still complaining about the animation being rigged without details they have zero ideas on how hard it's to make these rigs & animations, But for me it was extremely acceptable to the point where you can't even tell if it's real or not they really did a good job!