Making "Quetzalcoatl"

 

 

cebas: Hello Ari, Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers.

My name is Ari Sachter-Zeltzer. I am co-owner of Shadowplay Studio, (http://shadowplaystudio.com/), a design and animation studio geared towards the development of new and engaging visual styles. Our work spans title design, video projection for theater, video game cinematics and visual effects.

cebas: I think it's safe to say that "Quetzalcoatl" was a very important project for you and your firm. Can you tell us a bit about the project?

We recently completed production on an all-CG commercial celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence for Gruma ( the largest manufacturer of corn flour and tortillas in the world ). The spot was directed by Ben Lee of Nanospore who brought in our company, Shadowplay, early in the process to work with him on developing the visual style and ultimately, create the final animated piece.

The client wanted to tell the mythical story of how Quetzalcoatl's epic journey brought corn to the people of Mexico. Transforming from his feathered godlike form, into that of an ant, he travels through forests and mountains to find a magical field of corn, from which he brings back a sample to the people of Mexico.

cebas: What cebas software did you use in the production of Quetzalcoatl?

There are three cebas products that we used on this project: thinkingParticles, finalRender and finalToon. thinkingParticles is unmatched in its rule-based capabilities and ground-up procedural workflow, allowing us to rapidly develop reusable dynamic systems. Leveraging the instancing connection with finalRender, we were able to create vast fields of growing corn, feathers and self-assembling ziggurats with maximum control and flexibility. FinalToon's unique hatching map allowed us to use the nuanced characteristics of image based lighting, to drive the linework in our materials.

cebas: What features in particular helped you achieve your goal and how?

This project presented us with some interesting technical challenges, including, developing a unique visual style that blended various aspects of realistic shading and hand-made texture while still retaining the look of Nanospore's character designs. For the overall look, we took advantage of finalToon's hatching maps to create illustrated-style hatching patterns which were driven by our HDR lighting.

We also needed to create a dynamic and controllable feather system for the god-form of Quetzalcoatl. Using the new scripted operator features of thinkingParticles, we developed a system to allow map and curve based control for placement, size and color of our stylized feathers. The system also allowed artists control over pruning and overall sculpting. Script access through thinkingParticles also enabled us to make a custom export script to bake all of our feathers into animated dummy objects.

cebas: What was the most difficult aspect of this project and how did you solve it?

This project had challenges on all levels; we had to develop a compelling visual style that incorporated a handmade feel that resonated with the story and content, develop characters and multiple environments, build F/X setups for growing fields of corn, stylized splashes, time-lapse building pyramids, a flexible feather system, and deliver the spot from boards to final, inside of 5 weeks.

cebas: Can you give us a step-by-step breakdown of a typical shot?

We began with the director's storyboards and went on to create a rough previs of the entire sequence. This helped us to establish the overall pacing and layout for the shots. This step also helped us identify concepts, that either needed more or less time, since we ultimately had 30 seconds to tell the whole story. After previs, when we had a locked shotlist, we worked with the Director on key angles and compositions for each shot, from which we built the environments and placed our cameras.

cebas: How did cebas's software integrate into your production pipeline? Was this straightforward?

3ds Max plugins: finalRender, finalToon and thinkingParticles all integrated seamlessly into our 3d pipeline. Additionally, cebas has consistently been responsive to our feedback and production needs.

cebas: What was the most fun or rewarding part of this project for you?

Collaborating with our team of artists to develop and produce a new visual style, overcome creative, technical and logistical challenges and ultimately, deliver on time, is always a rewarding process.

cebas: What projects can we expect from you in the future? (Assuming you're able to tell us that is).

Our current slate of projects include, developing the video projections for a new world premiere opera for The Dallas Opera, main title sequences for John Carpenter and a new Fox television series.

Thank you Ari Sachter-Zeltzer for sharing his experience with us and the community. Every one is welcome to post his or her best work or samples on our webpage at www.cebas.com. Please join our Galleries and Portfolios and help build a strong community.