mufasa: The lion king
Company
MPC FILM for Disney
My role
Environment Artist - modeling, texturing, scene assembly, scattering
Software
Maya, Zbrush, Houdini, Substance Painter, Katana, Renderman, Nuke
This is probably the pinnacle of my career so far, and I am really proud to present it to you!
I created vast environments spanning snowy mountains, deserts, and lush savannas, bringing diverse landscapes to life.
Here’s an insight into this project. We ensured every plant and rock belonged to a specific environment type, replicating the real world as accurately as possible!
Hundreds of millions.
These mountain shots were more challenging than how they may seem. We are talking about hundreds of millions of polygons in a shot like this one.
For the snow, we used Houdini to procedurally generate a rough mesh, then hand-sculpted every detail to achieve the final result.
It was a long and thorough process, but I think it was worth it!
Blank Canvas.
I loved this sequence because of how simple and flat the initial layout from the client was.
This meant I had full control over the placement of every rock, tree, and blade of grass.
It was a great opportunity to exercise my full workflow and push boundaries.
Challenges may appear.
This environment apart from how heavy it is (they’re all heavy, we get it) is very unusual. These are not your regular assets and we have 5 characters interacting with it at different times, plus a stream added last minute.
For many assets, I took the layout geometry, added basic details in Houdini, and finished them by sculpting in ZBrush.
I had to ensure contrast flowed through the scene, as many assets in these shots shared similar materials. Realistic? Sure. But nobody wants a bland environment in a Disney movie, right?