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Choreography of Hair and Cloth in Disney's Moana 2
Multi-tiered strategy for choreographing Moana 2 hair and cloth motion using performance categorization, visual planning, and iterative refinement.
Abstract
In Walt Disney Animation Studios’ "Moana 2", the main characters undergo significant evolution from the original film, displaying a broad range of emotions while interacting with diverse environmental conditions. Crafting the hair and cloth motion to consistently support and enhance the complex character performances presented challenges for the character team, particularly when combined with nuanced art direction. To this end, we developed a multi-tiered and strategic approach for the choreography of the hair and cloth which includes three main areas of emphasis: Performance Categorization, Continuity through Visual Planning, and Iterative Refinement. Integral to this process were extensive and detailed drawovers, to ensure that hairstyles and costumes reacted consistently. This strategy allowed us to frontload the work through careful planning, enabling technical animation to execute on art direction of shots efficiently. We illustrate the overall approach with specifics for hair with Moana and Maui, and with Matangi for cloth.
How to read this
- Category
- Production paper / pipeline methodology
- Contributions
- A multi-tiered strategy for choreographing hair and cloth motion to support complex character performances in Disney's Moana 2
- Organizes the work around Performance Categorization, Continuity through Visual Planning, and Iterative Refinement, using detailed drawovers to keep hairstyles and costumes reacting consistently
- Frontloads planning so technical animation can execute art direction efficiently, illustrated via Moana and Maui hair and Matangi cloth
- Context
- A Disney production paper extending the studio's art-directed hair lineage (for example Hierarchical Controls for Art-Directed Hair) to coordinated hair-and-cloth choreography on a feature sequel.Builds on: Hierarchical Controls for Art-Directed Hair at Disney
- Correctness
- Studio practice, not peer-reviewed; results are production-proven on a shipped film, and the methodology is a process framework whose effectiveness is shown through specific shots rather than controlled comparison.
- Clarity
- Accessible and process-oriented; one read conveys the three-area strategy without heavy formalism.
- How to read it
- Read once for the planning framework (categorization, visual planning via drawovers, iterative refinement) and the worked examples; useful as a process reference rather than a technique to reimplement, so a single pass usually suffices.
Builds on
Built upon by
Nothing yet.
Related work
- Scriptable Character FX Solution 2019 / DigiPro
- Simulating Wind Effects on Cloth and Hair in Disney's Frozen 2014 / SIGGRAPH
- Art-Directing Asha's Braids in Disney's Wish 2024 / SIGGRAPH
- Anisotropic Elastoplasticity for Cloth, Knit and Hair Frictional Contact 2017 / TOG
Keywords
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