Mar 07

Method Creates CG Capsule for Verizon Wireless

Posted in: Your News

New York, NY – March 7, 2011 – Acclaimed visual effects company Method Studios recently completed work on Capsule, a new campaign from Verizon Wireless via agency mcgarrybowen and production company Believe Media promoting the MOTOROLA XOOM, a new tablet powered by the Android™ 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system. The campaign, which consists of a teaser and two :30, focuses on a young man who discovers the tablet during a late night stroll down a boardwalk and then is instantly engulfed in a hovering capsule, illustrating the interactivity and the immersive experience the XOOM provides.


Verizon’s CG Capsule

Method was involved in the campaign from the conceptual brief. “It was a true collaborative affair with the director, creatives and conceptual artists,” commented Jay Lichtman, Method Executive Producer. “From the concept art stage, the design of the capsule was ever-evolving; changes to the design of the capsule’s interior, exterior, graphics and color palette were finessed all the way to delivery.

The campaign slogan “Grab It and It Grabs You” accurately describes Method’s experience working on the project. “From the moment we received the treatment we couldn’t wait to bring the “capsule” concept to life,” offered Method 3D Visual Effects Supervisor Andy Jones. “Being asked to create a futuristic hovering pod out of nothing borders on self-indulgence; it was a true labor of love for our team.”

Method provided a host of 2D and 3D services for the campaign. On the 2D front, comprehensive rotoscopy, rig removal and beauty work was done on the live-action plates. There was also seamless integration of photorealistic CG within the live-action plates and complementary optical effects. On the 3D side, modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering were provided. A photorealistic full interior was created for the capsule along with complementary “thruster” and environmental effects. The project was composited in Nuke and finished in Flame. After Effects and Photoshop were utilized to create motion graphics throughout.

The enthusiasm for the work was evident throughout the project, as the entire team consistently delivered results above and beyond expectations in every aspect of production. “It was an absolute pleasure working with Rory Kelleher from Believe Media and the creative team at mcgarrybowen,” said Jones. “We’re tremendously grateful for the chance to collaborate with such talented individuals on the next chapter of what is quite possibly the most exhilarating ad campaign on the air today.”

CREDITS

Titles:
"Teaser"
"Software"
"Hardware"

Client: Verizon Wireless

Agency: mggarrybowen

Creatives:
Mark Koelfgen – Managing Director/Exec. Creative Director
Warren Eakins – Executive Creative Director
Mark Abellera – Group Creative Director

Tiffany Smith – Associate Creative Director/Copywriter
Michael Cannova – Associate Creative Director/Art Director

Production:
Roseanne Horn – Executive Director of TVP
Suzanne Crowe – Executive Producer
Chad Garber – Broadcast Producer

Music Production:
Jerry Krenach – Director of Music Production
Jean Scofield – Music Producer

Believe Media/Los Angeles
Rory Kelleher – Director
Liz Silver – Executive Producer
Gary Romano – Line Producer

Nomad Editorial/New York
Tom Muldoon – Editor
Ray Frech – Asst. Editor
Celest Gilbert – Executive Producer
Anne Vega – Producer

Method Studios/New York
Doug Luka – 3D Visual Effects Supervisor
Andy Jones – 3D Visual Effects Supervisor
Peter Marin – 2D Visual Effects Supervisor
Jay Lichtman – Executive Producer
Tram Le – Producer

Original Music/Q Department
Original Music by Q Department

Sound Design/Trinitite Studio
Brian Emrich – Sound Designer

Sound Mixing/Sonic Union
Michael Maranelli – Mixer
Steve Rosen – Mixer

About Method Studios
Based in Los Angeles, with locations in New York and London, Method Studios is a leading post production facility providing a full range of visual effects services including conceptual design, look development, 3D animation/CGI, matte painting, compositing and finishing. Method Studios also provides an array of services to stereoscopic film productions, including the creation of stereo 3D content. Method’s sister company, Company 3, maintains a full stereoscopic color-grading suite in the same building as Method’s Los Angeles facility, most recently used for Tim Burton’s "Alice in Wonderland." www.methodstudios.com

# # #

Media Contact:
Jeremy Monsayac
Jeremy.monsayac@bydeluxe.com
818.260.6267

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Mar 07

Need to replace my current matchmoving tools and need advice.

Posted in: Matchmoving Software
I may be on the market for a matchmoving software and I’m wondering what would you guys recommend between Syntheyes and the new PFmatchit? Syntheyes seems to be cheaper and I hear it’s one of the easiest matchmovers to use. What do you guys think?

I have the PFmatch for Shake which Pixelfarm gave away for free when Apple stopped selling Shake. But I have yet to touch it.
But I have also "moved on" from Shake to Fusion and I’m not sure if I could still use the PFmatch within Shake for matchmoving shots which I will comp in Fusion or if it’s not a good idea/possible? Can I export my data to Fusion? I thought that would spare me from buying another matchmover at least for the moment. But I have yet to find any info if it’s possible or not. I couldn’t manage to do it.
And while we are at it, what is the main different between the PFmatch plug-in and PFtrack (besides the later being a stand alone)?

Thanks.

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Mar 07

Maya Generalist and VFX

Posted in: Freelancer Listings
Hi, my name is Aleksandar Stiglic. I’m a maya generalist and visual effects artist, working mainly on broadcast television projects. I’m bachelor of art for Directing. I have 20 years experience as a professional 3D artist, using wide range of software, now mainly using Maya. My website link for showreel and CV: http://www.pixelman.org Linked in connection: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/astiglic Cg-talk portfolio: http://als.cgsociety.org/gallery/ Thank you Aleksandar
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Mar 07

VFX Talk & Imagineer Announce Mocha Pro Contest Winner!

Posted in: Industry News
[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/swatch_thumb.jpg”]30709[/NEWS]VFXTalk are pleased to announce the results of the VFX Talk & Imagineer Systems mocha Pro Contest, the first in a series of new VFXTalk sponsored contests for 2011. These special sponsored contests will run independently from the VFXTalk Challenges, and involve some incredible industry sponsors.

The brief for the mocha Pro contest was open; entrants simply needed to enter an interesting, creative and challenging piece of work, created using any of Imagineer’s products. The mocha Pro contest was judged by the teams at VFX Talk and Imagineer Systems, and the winner, Bruno Isana, receives a prize of a full license for Mocha Pro.

The judges felt that the winning entry ‘Switch Watch’ was “an exceptional piece that really demonstrated a creative approach to mocha, that was professionally produced in a very short period of time!”

The Process
The winner, Bruno Isana, notes the process behind some of the shots.

Front Newspaper shot: On this shot, first i created a tracking of the newspaper with mocha by tracking the entire surface. I filmed with a canon 7D and i have a slight rolling shutter deformation due to the shaking of the camera. So, by tracking the entire surface of the newspaper, Mocha followed the movement and the rolling shutter deformation.

I made a roto on my thumb and linked it to the tracked layer. After i aligned the mocha surface with the “Align Surface” button on the entire image and i made a layer with the new newspaper front page and i did the integration.

Newspaper Back shot: On this shot, to avoid a jump cut, i had to modify the shot and put the right newspaper back and tracked it with mocha.

Watch shot: The first time i tried to track the screen on this shot, it went away because of the thumb that come in the tracking area. During the planning of this short film, I saw some training videos on the imagineer systems website, and I remember a video which talked about this kind of situation. So i added a layer over the tracking one that followed the thumb to extract it from the tracking. I launched the tracking and it worked great. Then, I made a roto on the hand and the thumb linked to the tracking layer for the “swtiching background”.

Roto A shot: For this roto, i first made a tracking of my head and a roto shape linked to the tracked layer. I adjusted the shape when my skin deformed, and then did another roto shape for my body and it was done.

About Mocha Pro
Leveraging more than 8 years of engineering research and development, mocha Pro offers digital media artists a powerful, intuitive and innovative planar tracking-based solution with a streamlined interface, accelerated workflow and the power to easily track and manipulate shots not possible with traditional solutions. mocha Pro is the ideal VFX complement for film/video post production, creative motion graphics and 2D-3D conversion pipelines.

mocha Pro delivers all the planar tracking and rotoscoping tools from award winning software, mocha and adds compositing tools for match moving, auto image and wire removal, clean plate generation, lens distortion correction and stabilization, to deliver an all-in-one master VFX tool set. By combining the best of legacy products mokey and monet, Imagineer now offers one product with all the features. mocha Pro’s remove module is the industry’s most unique alternative to painting, cloning & manual tracking.

About Imagineer Systems
Imagineer Systems develops powerful, accessible desktop visual effects software applications for film, video and broadcast post production markets. In 2000, Imagineer Systems revolutionized visual effects software tracking with the creation of its industry renowned, award winning Planar Tracking image analysis engine, and has made its mark on such marquee Hollywood blockbuster productions as Alice in Wonderland, Iron Man 2, Shutter Island, Invictus, G-Force and the Harry Potter series.

RELATED LINKS
Contest Thread Here:
 http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/imagine…ro-t30117.html
Learn more:
 www.imagineersystems.com/products/mochapro


Download a fully working 15 day trial of mocha Pro:
 www.imagineersystems.com/download-view


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Mar 07

Rainbow CGI is looking for modelers, surfacing artists and production assistants

Posted in: The Job Lot
Rainbow CGI, has a need for modelers, surfacing artists and production assistants in our Rome location.
The successful candidate must have years of experience and organizational skills are a must.
Moreover he must have good understanding of CG projects, a professional showreel, with clear information to show what was done, and by whom and that shows extensive ability to solve complex problems.

Qualified candidates should submit their resumes to recruiting@rbw-cgi.it .
Showreels should be posted to Recruitment at Rainbow Cgi Animation Studio, 374, Via della Bufalotta, 00139 – Rome – Italy

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Mar 07

Render completed when fluid fx simulation NOT rendered at all

Posted in: Maya
Hey guys,

I’m having some trouble and hoping you guys can help me out. I am running into a problem where I have two fluid fx simulations going for a volcano scene. One is the ash coming out of the volcano, the other is the lava. I cached out my fluids fx, but when I go to batch render it says that it has completed rendering after a few sec. It’s 150 frames at 30fps. I tried the following steps to no avail

1. Optimizing Scene Size
2. Creating each fluid on its own layer
3. Importing the file into a new Maya scene.
4. Recreating a Camera and copy and pasting the keyframe (I only have one key set for my camera so I won’t lose the place of where I want it to be rendered from).

Also can you please give directions on how to render from Terminal on a Mac. I know its something like _mr and then the path which I can just drag and drop the actual file into.

Thanks for the help.

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Mar 07

REEL 2010 :)

Posted in: Demo Reels!

Compositing Showreel 2010 from Nikhil Pathak on Vimeo.

Suggestions for further improvements…

Thank You 🙂

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Mar 06

opacitylayer of a layer

Posted in: NUKE from The Foundry
How can i do to modify the opacity of a layer (NODE READ) ???

thank you

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Mar 06

2D PAINT REEL 2011

Posted in: Demo Reels!
Hi guys…
uploading my first 2d paint reel…

need suggestions for improvement.

thanks.

My 2D Paint Reel 2011 from Nikhil Pathak on Vimeo.

http://www.vimeo.com/20426255

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Mar 06

Lucas Zanotto for TUI

Posted in: analog, Animation, Digital, General, live action, lucas zanotto, TUI

What can you make with paper cut-outs, fishing line, a hole puncher, and a Canon 7D?

Lucas Zanotto shows us with his live action animation combined with digital post production in this spot for TUI. In a time where so much work is being made using primarily digital techniques, Lucas blends analog and digital creativity and production methods. In addition to the organic aesthetic, the live action animation is truly analog in that you can never repeat the same animation twice!

Check out an interview with Lucas, a making of video, and production stills…

What inspired you to create the TUI piece with such a tactile aesthetic?

Jung von Matt Hamburg came up with this campaign for TUI AG, which is the biggest travel agency in Germany. They provided a mood board and referenced some of my prior work. The references were the scenic architecture in one spot and a character in another. The inspiration was to combine these techniques and take them further.

JvM created a smart phone app, on which you can save your daily weather status on an online Facebook app. After 4 weeks, the person having the worst average weather wins a trip to the Dominican Republic. So the technique was the best way to support the story and show a character that goes through all types of bad weather to save points.

I wanted to keep it simple, thinking it would be nice to animate the set as I would with animation software, but animate it live in camera. I wanted to animate the character in that way as well, but it would have been too restricted so I decided to do it digitally. But that contrast is actually what creates some of the overall tension between the character and the weather and makes the story memorable.

Do you think a more organic look and feel affects the audience in a different way than a purely digital production?

Yes, it affects people in different ways based on their own taste or aesthetic sense. Analog has a charm because it has something tactile and magical in it. I personally like the organic look and feel, because I like to have some little mistakes in the work, the little unexpected things and touches. This gives to the aesthetics something special and unique, something individual to the story.

Can you share some details about what kind of materials you used and how the elements were made?

In this spot all the elements were cut out of paper. They are hanging on fishing line, are falling in to the stage and are blown away by a hairdryer. I deliberately kept it very flat to keep the world graphic and to keep purity and a consistency for the character and the landscape.

What kind of equipment did you use in the production and what software / techniques did you use in post-production.

The live footage was shot with a Canon 7D. The set was lit with two soft boxes. The postproduction was done in After Effects. The character is built in different mask layers and animated frame by frame.

The making of video really shows the hand-made quality of this piece, as well as analog nature of live action animation. Can you expand on what it was like to produce this spot?

Again, with the goal to keep things as simple as possible and keep the world consistent, live animation was conceived as one shot… of course it took many takes to get it right. But in each take you learn something. We also had an animatic with countdown for the main actions. All the weather situations and character interaction were worked out before hand with the client, using style frames and storyboards. It took quite a lot of thinking and a bit of testing to find out the best way to animate the live action weather part.

How would you describe this kind of production?

I think we are at a point where digital artists, animators and filmmakers are not thinking so much in terms of software, but in terms of what kind of tools can be used to tell the story. The medium of a screen is very forgiving and encouraging to seamless blending of techniques. In the end the most important part is to communicate the message in a clear and simple way. To describe this piece, the category of Mixed Media could work well.

What are your thoughts about combining traditional/analog techniques with digital production?

I think combining different techniques is a good option to create something personal and maybe original. If you stick too much to one option you often are restricted in expressing your ideas.

Check out more of Lucas’s work at www.lucaszanotto.com

Credits for TUI:

Direction/Design/Animation: Lucas Zanotto

Assistant: Robert Loebel

Sound design: David Kamp

Jung von Matt Team: René Requardt, Andres Maldonado, Tommy Norin, Salvatore Russomano

Links///
filmtecknarna.se/​directors
twitter.com/​lucas_zanotto

Posted on Motionographer

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