Life of Pi - Tiger

Creating a life-like tiger as a main character that must be pretty much all computer generated takes an insane amount of animation work. Everything needs to be exactly like a real tiger, down to the muscle patterns. The animators that worked on the tiger through Rhythm & Hues productions had access to real tigers for all the animating work they needed. They used real tigers in the film for only a total of 20 shots, everything else was done with the CG tigers they built. VFX supervisor Westenhofer explained that it was the most complex creature they had every animated. He said that the paws were the most challenging since they required the most amount of independent controls. Ths is the kind of animation that is truly awe inspiring, it just looks so real.