The components of the original (2003 model. The key contribution of that original paper was to “identify, explain, and verify these different modes of scattering in hair and the appearance characteristics they are responsible for, as well as to provide a simple model to simulate them” commented Marschner when he spoke recently to fxguide.
Transmit Specular: TT light transmits through the hair surface (forward scattering) and produces the important back lighting.Secondary Specular: TRT “transmit” this becomes the colored specular contribution.Primary Specular: This can be described as the specular reflection.The success of the Marschner model is in great part due to the specular estimatation and it’s deployment of three specular lobes using multiple specular transport paths: We spoke to both Professor Steve Marschner at Cornell University and Christophe Hery at Pixar Research group about the evolution of Pixar’s PxrMarschnerHair solution. The primary Marschner model has been optimised and extended by the Pixar Rendering Research Group from the initial paper published in 2003 by Steve Marschner et al : Light Scattering from Human Hair Fibers. (Model and Groom by TELYUKA created with Maya, Shave and a Haircut, & RenderMan (see also our Saya story on Telyuka)). The advanced hair model is innovative for its complex backscattering and glint and when it was released in RenderMan 19, it was the only commercial renderer that offered those features. The Marschner Hair shader was first released in RenderMan 19 and it has been improved for the newest release 21.5. Believable hair adds not only realism but production value and key character personality. This remarkable work has been both significant and enormously impactful.
A major milestone in RenderMan’s hair solution was the addition and subsequent update of the Marschner Hair shader. Hair is a key factor in so much of Pixar’s character work. Pixar has long needed to be able to produce CG hair for film’s such as Monsters University, Good Dinosaur, Finding Dory (the seals) and many others. Good Dinosaur was the first use of PxrMarschnerHair, but with RSL (since it was the last film rendered using Reyes), Finding Dory was fully rendered with the RIS hair implementation in RenderMan. And animation brought gold to that scene.Monsters used the older simplified hair shader, but it was one of the first uses of importance sampling for some of Marschner’s model terms. There is a larger-than-life feeling you get with wide-angle lenses. It was brand new at the time and all the rage-it was attached to a cable so it could move across the wide spans of a stadium. I looked at technology from the era and found the Spidercam. “We really wanted our camera and choreography to capture the look and feel of videos from the late 1990s and early 2000s. “I was obsessed with the boy band scene to the point where I spent an entire weekend watching every NSYNC and Backstreet Boys music video I could find,” says Abousaeedi.
“We did a bunch of stage fog, pyrotechnics and vapor geysers,” says Hale.ĭirector of photography Mahyar Abousaeedi set out to create an authentic concert experience. Artists started with the actual dimensions of Toronto’s SkyDome, then played with the scale to find the sweet spot, allowing the climactic ending to unfold to its greatest potential.Įffects supervisor Dave Hale and his team studied live concerts to help build the effects for the concert sequences. Mei and her friends are determined to attend the 4*Town concert, so filmmakers knew they’d need a spectacular venue for the occasion.