read more goes here————————————————————————–
|
|
August 2009 General Meeting: Anthony Chappina of Reel FX/Radium
|
|
|
|
|
Anthony Chappina works for Reel FX’s commercial division, Radium, and enjoys bouncing back and forth between both the company’s commercial and the film teams. He specializes in Special FXs for Houdini (Side Effects Software Inc.) and Real Flow (Next Limit Technologies). In the pipeline he models, programs, and animates various fluid and particle effects. At the ABOSG August 2009 meeting, Anthony offered to show us a few commercials and then demonstrate the impressive effects he’s authored.
|
|
 |
|
|
The Coors Commercial
|
|
|
Anthony begins with a recently completed commercial for the Coors Brewing Co promoting the new blue cold activated aluminum cans. A fun fact about this commercial is that Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime in the recent Transformers movies, did the voiceover work. The premise of the commercial is that the Coors logo (a Colorado mountain range) animates first as a realistic place with a silver bullet train rushing through the landscape. The landscape is then captured on the side of the can, promising the drinker the refreshing and exciting taste of the Rockies. The entire spot is CG, but Radium was specifically contracted to create the mountain ranges, trees, and snow effects. Once the project was underway Anthony was brought in to handle all the snow and mist effects. The results are realistic gushes of wind blowing snow off the limbs of trees and swirling particles of snow rushing through the air. The dramatic motion of the effect blends well with the overall strong, punchy animation of the commercial.
|
|
 |
|
|
Anthony admits he creates a lot of fluid motions using Maya. He begins by developing the tools for the effect he needs, and then passing the tools either on to an artist for use, or uses the tool himself to animate the effect. For the trees in this commercial, he set up a particle system. In Maya, he uses a 3D fluid box that allows him to take a particle system into the box and create various effects. By doing this he achieves the nice, fluid effects that would be otherwise difficult to duplicate.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Disney Commercial
|
|
|
|
The Disney commercials were a three part spot (two for Disneyworld and one for Disneyland) for a 2008 holiday campaign. The concept is a pop-up storybook world set in a cloudy, snowy atmosphere that leads the audience through magical Disney environments and on to the Disney logo and castle. For reference, Disney commissioned a pop-up book artist to build the world’s sets and models so Radium had physical references for the folds of the buildings.Anthony elaborates on how this was a tremendous help for solving how the computer 3D models would fold and deform correctly. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
He rigged roughly 90% of the models, as well as completed the snow effects, and his role in the project lasted between two and three months. He shows us several samples of the completed rigs. Anthony was impressed by Disney; the happiest place on Earth has their own in-house agency, so Disney flew to Dallas to meet with the Radium team for production meetings during the development and changes of the project.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Anthony shows a play blast of the castle rig he built (and also helped model), which he admits took him some time to figure out correct deformation. The hardest part of the pop-up building challenge was to get the buildings to fold correctly without falling through additional layers of the model. He used a combination of in-house studio tools with a combination of IK animation. By using set driven keys (half set driven keys and half IK animation), he is able to handle the needs of the project. To get the folds of the castle to pin on to the page, Radium had a Technical Director write a custom plug-in for Maya to constrain the pages, something Maya natively will not do. The tool gave them the ability to lock locators on the specific faces so every layer of building ordered correctly. The commercial’s sets went through roughly ten to fifteen revisions (all of which had to be rigged), but the final product is remarkable in its rigging and animation complexity. Because there were so many versions, he built a barebones rig and then took the new models and populated them in and to limit the need to re-rig. With the animation finished, Radium gave Disney the flexibility to review the project and change their minds over the look of the buildings and structures. |
|
|
|
|
Zain Telecommunication Network Commercial
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For Zain Telecommunications, Radium built a massive folding soccer stadium. The commercial’s concept is a young soccer player progresses in age, skill, and celebrity while his surrounding fans, field, and stadium also grow in size and status. Zain Telecommunication’s cell phone networks are there to quickly inform the involved parties of the young player’s progression. Anthony and a team of four artists were tasked with rigging the final stadium (the entire model was driven by set driven keys). The commercial composited in Inferno and Flame and the stadium’s crowd was created my massive simulation.
|
|
|
|
|
To break this project down, we look at the animation tests to see little pieces of the stadium folding and unfolding on itself. Anthony’s biggest challenge was wrapping his mind around exactly how the client wanted the stadium to fold, which (as always) requires some experimentation. He made a tool to handle the folds, rather than keying every single rotation. We examine the rig. For this presentation, Anthony removed the seats of the stadium. Most of the project was keying off of visibility, so once one part of the stadium closes, it hides itself. Each section is set with its own series of sliders, so there are sliders to control the concrete in the front, the stairs, and each row of the stadium. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Once everything was set and in place, he only had to set four or five key frames for the entire animation of the stadium. The client was very particular on how they wanted the stadium to unfold, so there were multiple versions of the stadium unfolding left to right, right to left, and towards the center. When the rig was complete, Anthony could just pass the model on to lighting and compositing.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| His advice? Be prepared to incorporate changes, because commercial work has more changes than any department. He’s gone as far as 90% towards completion of a project before a client decides to change a model, requiring the team to start over. By building smart rigs (that you can drop new models over), he saves time, money, and morale when the changes do come.
Workflow is one of the biggest things artists (especially artists new to the industry) have a hard time grasping, but it’s the most important! The pipeline is meticulous. Someone has to know the pipeline and file structure before they can begin working because a mistake in the pipeline can be detrimental to a project. Reel FX & Radium’s pipeline is models files that include models, rigs, textures, and FX files. Radium uses a publishing system, so once a model is published, it goes into the rig and textures. The publishing system keeps updates and changes organized and in order. The company also has a separate studio tool for Maya, so once Maya launches a separate window launches that lists all of the working files out. It helps because the folder structure is very deep. |
|
|
|
|
Demonstrations
|
|
| Anthony reviews his Masters’ work at SCAD (currently on the Next Limit website). He also demonstrates a 3-4 million particle Real Flow simulation of oil and water mixing together for Kraft along with a Houdini metaball simulation for Verizon. We could tell you the tips we learned about these programs in the demonstrations, but trade secrets are reserved for the live audience at general meetings. Anthony does offer some parting advice to artists intent on honing their skills. “Know yourself,” and be able to gauge how long it will take you to complete a task, because when you bid a project and are asked how long it will take you to complete something, you better well know. Otherwise, you’re going to be in hot water if it doesn’t get finished. If you run out of time and end up working overtime or weekends, it is because you didn’t measure your own capabilities accurately.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Anthony has definitely learned to measure his own skills and applied them to his success. We congratulate Anthony Chappina on his continued achievements at Radium, and wish him the best of luck with all of his projects in the future.
To learn more about Anthony, please visit his website. |
|
Article by Amy Cass
|
