The making of the Xian terra-cotta soldiers

This paper describes the making of a short film on the Xian terra-cotta soldiers using our integrated HUMANOID software. The method of creating and animating the soldiers’ faces is first presented. Then, we show how our approach based on metaballs and spline surfaces was used for designing and deforming soldiers’ bodies. For the animation of the bodies, we describe the motion control methods. Clothes for the soldiers are then described as well as horses and decor design. For the rendering, we explained our strategy using parallel machines. Finally, problems of integration are addressed.