|
The
simulations took on average about 30 minutes
each to calculate. This may not seem like
a very long time, but since an innumerable
number of tests had to be conducted to get
a satisfactory motion, we had to have many
computers working at the same time, each solving
a different simulation, with varying settings.
Integrity errors became another problem as
many of our initial tests continued to crash.
Upon cleaning up the mesh a little more, running
STL checks, and tweaking the forces a little
longer, the errors disappeared. Yet another
problem occurred when we liked one simulation
and the motion it created, but we wanted to
push one of the pieces a little more in another
direction, since changing a variable ever
so slightly would create a completely different
result the next time. Therefore, we didn't
have much control over changing the
simulation we ended up with, but rather a
lot of control over creating it.
Once
we had simulations we were pleased with, we
had to texture map the animated mesh with
the treatment Brad had come up with. This
originally seemed like it would be a major
ordeal because fully texture mapping the entire
car, with animated textures for only 3 shots
would have required an immense amount of time.
Therefore we looked into other alternatives.
Luckily, we realized that we could actually
'camera map' the first shot of the peeling
sequence with a still of the first frame of
the treated footage, and get away with it,
since we never saw any other angles of the
car except the front in that particular shot.
'Camera Mapping' refers to mapping an object
with a texture projected from the view of
the camera. Since the motion and staging of
our 3D car matches that of the live action,
and the movement the real car makes is not
a drastic change in perspective, it is therefore
possible to use the original shot as a texture.
Also, since we don't ever see the other side,
or back end, of the car for which the texture
doesn't exist, this is once again an ideal
situation for camera mapping. For the second
shot of the top view of the car, we simply
had to use the first frame of the treated
scene as a texure as well, without any problems
since it is a direct overhead shot without
any significant perspective change. Finally,
for the third shot, we could once again use
a camera map because even though there is
a severe change in perspective, the pieces
have almost all but peeled off by the time
the car begins to turn. The other thing to
mention is that the underside of the mesh
was textured with a much darker tone in order
to create a definitive contrast between the
outer and inner part of the texture.
Finally,
the lighting and rendering phase began (although
there was no lighting involved since everything
was rendered with self illumination in order
to maintain Brad's treatment). Rendering was
broken up into numerous layers such as background,
foreground, shadows, etc, in order to give
the compositor additional control over color
correction, which proved to be useful during
the online session with the agency. In addition,
a GI pass was created to simulate the shadows
that should appear where the peeling texture
makes contact with the real car. Everything
was re-rendered at the original resolution
at which we received the files and, despite
the high resolution involved, renders were
fast as a result of zero lights and reasonable
polycount.
The
final spot was composited using Combustion,
and then sent back to Toybox for dumping back
to film. There were several transfer tests
done first, since there sometimes tends to
be dramatic changes in color going from file
to film. The final 61 second spot began airing
in Canadian theatres in March, 2002. There
is also a 30 second version airing on Canadian
and American television networks.
The
software used to create "Toyota Matrix"
was 3dsmax, Simcloth, US Animation, Flash,
After Effects, and Combustion.
|
