When you watch the trailer for Brave one thing stands out to you, and no it isn’t that signature Pixar charm. It’s the damned curly hair of main character Merida. It’s so long! It bounces! How the hell did they do that?

The Wall Street Journal reports that Pixar used a new piece of software to make the magical-looking hair. Pixar created the program, in addition to another software system. Together, they allow Merida’s hair to not only bounce around and interact with each other but to react to the character’s movements and surroundings.

In that lovely head of hair are 1,500 individually sculpted curls. Could you imagine animating that hair every frame? Ugh, my hands cramp just thinking about it. Hopefully Pixar can license their new technology so we get more realistic hair in everything! CG commercials, movies about hairy things, video games about hairy things, animated hairy things – the possibilites are endless! But alas, Pixar doesn’t have any plans to license the tech out. [Wall Street Journal via Vulture]

brave, merida, special effects, tech