AFCG Archives - Effects
Starburst - Lifeguard
Agency: Grey Advertising
Director: Rob Lopes
Production: The Lopes Picture Company
Visual Effects: Black Logic
CGI: AFCG, Inc.
Where to start with this job? Well, this was one of those rare projects that makes it all worth while. A technically challenging production that brought together miniatures, CGI, live action, greenscreen, rig removal, and layer upon layer of subtle compositing effects. Much credit goes to Michel Suissa, (director of visual effects), and the digital artists at Black Logic for bringing all these elements together and adding the creative details that makes this spot a visual success.
To make a short story (30 seconds) shorter... a lifeguard assigned to the "seniors" pool pops a Starburst and enters his underwater Atlantis fantasy of mermaids, nymphs and schools of fruit fish.
The challenge for AFCG was to create and animate the schools of fruit
to not only look like actual fruit in the scene but to also make them
move and behave as large groups of fish would.
The obvious first step in achieving the effect was to create 3D databases,
texture maps and lighting techniques that made individual pieces of fruit
look real in the live action environments in which they would be placed.
We relied heavily on reference plates that were shot of each fruit. Some
of these plates were adapted and used as texture maps.
Once we had the
individual fruit looking real and properly integrated into each scene we
then concentrated on creating animated "schools" of fruit. This effect was
mostly achieved procedurally with complex layering of partical systems
in Houdini. Once
we had the general motion of a "school" set up we then applied individual
motion characteristics to each fruit based on how fast they were moving and in
which direction. As much as a school appears to move "as one" it will not
look natural unless every individual is doing something unique.
The next step was to have the schools of fruit interact with the actors. This
was mostly achieved by creating "spheres-of-influence" around the actors bodies
within Houdini. If a partical, (fruit), entered the sphere it would "react" by
swimming quickly away or around the actor. This is clearly shown in the first
two frames where the mermaid is swimming through, and parting, the school of
lemons and strawberries.
Even with all this effort to procedurally make the schools move
naturally and every fruit look unique, we still found it necessary to go in
by hand and animate many individual fruit to add more character to the schools.
This is why you'll see some individual fruit stop, turn around, and move
in the opposite direction of the school, or others that come directly up to
the camera, then quickly swim away.
Finally, the CG schools of fruit were composited together with all the other
elements of the scene. AFCG supplied Black Logic with alpha channels and
depth maps of each CG layer. This made it possible to add depth cueing to
the schools of fruit to account for the diminishing visibililty of
objects underwater as their distance from the viewer increases.