Photo realism is always a challenge that CG artists seek to overcome.
Mumbai based Visual Computing Labs recently worked on creating Photo Realistic CG Kangaroos for a new series of Jumpin TVCs for Equinox and some of the shots have turned out real convincing.
The Jumpin TVC features an adventure that takes place with an Indian family vacationing down under where their �Jumpin’ guzzling kid outjumps an entire herd of Kangaroos.
A team of 14 artists worked on the TVC to complete it in a five week schedule.One of the first CG shots (a close up with the Kangaroo twitching its ear) in the opening sequence of the TVC is a real winner.
VCL Creative Director Pankaj Khandpur shared with Animation �xpress, �Creating photo realistic CG animation of Kangaroos for a TVC was always going to be a challenge. Initially we had some doubts about pulling it off in the allotted timeline but once the close up of the first shot was approved, we knew it would work. The biggest challenge was getting the fur right�
�We have created the fur in Maya but have also utilized our fur expertise in the planning stage. High-resolution depth maps were used for rendering the character skin and for fur rendering with mental ray and maya software renderer. Four layers were used for the skin. It took close to 1.5 to 2hours per frame to render� he added.
�The muscle movements of the Kangaroo were achieved by using various kinds of influences in the Rig. VCL used its own rig manager plug-in developed in-house� he concluded.
The Jumpin Commercial was created by Madison Creative for their Client Godrej.
Prabha Prabhu, Executive Director of Madison Creative said,”When my Creative Director Kartik Mani and his team came up with the film script we liked the idea very much and when we presented the same to the Client , they also instantly bought the film. But my apprehension was on the quality of the computer graphics and of course to finish the same on time. But the VCL, Tata Elxsi team did a wonderful job.
“The kangaroos looked so real that everybody thought we had shot the film in Australia. And for the film to go on Star TV we had to actally give them a letter confirming that the kangaroos were animated and not real” she added.