LogInAn incredible achievement from fifteen years ago.
Encanto may have been the first animated film to showcase the full spectrum of hair textures, but Disney's journey with animated hair has a long history, filled with technical breakthroughs. Let's take a nostalgic look back with Azumoff at Tangled, which was released in 2010.
Rapunzel's most iconic feature is her long and dynamic hair. Fifteen years ago, bringing it to life was a major technical challenge: CG technology at the time often made her hair unpredictable. After extensive effort, including the creation of specialized software, Dynamic Wires, the team managed to animate around 140,000 individual strands across 70 feet of hair. The result remains visually impressive even by today's standards.
You can read a Post Magazine interview with the Tangled team from around the film's release, where they discuss the hair and the technical challenges involved. Here's Disney's SIGGRAPH 2010 talk on the subject. Also, you can watch Insider's video tracing the evolution of Disney's 3D-animated hair:
On 80 Level, we frequently share behind-the-scenes insights from major film productions. For example, you can learn about the creation of the cobwebs in the Second-Chance Antiques store in Toy Story 4:
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