Comanches vs Cavalry: artistically directable in-crowd ragdoll simulation

Abstract

For the Comanches vs Cavalry sequence in Disney's The Lone Ranger, MPC was tasked with complex horse and rider simulations for scenes where a crowd of stampeding Comanches are mowed down by the cavalry's gatling guns. To achieve this MPC had to extend its proprietary crowd system ALICE to allow for highly artistically directable ragdoll physics simulations blended with motion captured and hand-animated clips.