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Framestore
NY has created two spectacular, funny takes on household disasters
for Hoover. For Spill and Dogs, the Framestore
NY creative team drew on their extensive 2D, 3D, and compositing
experience to minutely detail what happens when a drop of
red wine hits a snow white carpet, and metaphorically represent
what happens every time a dog shakes itself off.
"The team at Martin Williams really wanted things to be colourful
and funny," says Murray Butler, Visual Effects Supervisor
and Lead Flame Artist at Framestore NY. "We took them at their
word. These spots are certainly a bit of a departure for Hoover,
but everyone is very happy with the results."
Mother of All Spills
True to its title, Spill opens in a pristinely white
room where a beautiful woman is reading a magazine. Reaching
a bit too energetically for her glass of red wine, the woman
causes the ruby liquid to slosh around which in turn sends
a single drop cascading over the rim of the glass. Descending
towards the white shag carpet, the drop explodes ferociously
into millions of tiny red droplets, sending stains billowing
across every tendril of carpet and erupting into a ruby red
vision. Fortunately for the clumsy woman, the shadow of the
Hoover SteamVac All-Terrain quickly descends over the red
stain, removing any trace of its existence.
"We worked hard to achieve this sort of exponential reaction
from a single drop into a catastrophe," says Butler. "We took
careful note of the angles that we needed to match for the
most realistic effect. For ultimate realism, we actually used
an HD camera to shoot the initial impact of the drip at approximately
2000 frames per second. We then brought that super high-speed
live action together with the CG spill we created using SideFX
Houdini. We used Autodesk Flame and Sapphire Sparks to add
light effects, lens flares, and camera shake to heighten the
mood. All the drips in the spill are CG, but in the next shot,
they are live action. I think it's safe to say that no one
would be able to tell the difference, which is a testament
to our animators."
The perfectionist Framestore NY team also filmed powerful
blasts of compressed air across the carpet at super high-speed,
allowing them to include a blast blowing back the carpet fibres.
The effect is both astonishing and amusing.
Framestore NY artist Andy Walker commented, "With nine CG
wine-based shots to deliver in a very short turnaround, from
detail shots, droplets, to full screen tumultuous cascading
wine, we chose to create our fluid simulations using custom
designed, fluid choreographing tools, rather than the "hit
and hope" physical simulation technique available out of the
box. This allowed us to accommodate both minute and dramatic
changes in concept and direction right up to the deadline.
We utilized Mentalray's excellent ray tracing power to make
wine which held its own side by side with practical effects,
giving us the ability to accurately, physically match the
look of the wine and heavy depth of field."
To the Dogs
In Dogs, an immense, shaggy, and dripping wet Newfoundland
lumbers into the same pristine white room before deciding
to shake off the excess moisture on his luxuriant coat. As
he goes into full shake, however, the gentle giant explodes
into a dozen or so much smaller, blacker version of himself,
all of them accompanied by floating tufts of hair. Just as
the playful puppies begin to lay waste to the room, however,
they are gently lifted skyward by the bright red Hoover logo,
returning the room to its original spotless state.
"Initially, the client wanted to do the dog's transformation
entirely in 3D," says Butler. "We had a look and decided it
would be both cheaper and faster to shoot real dogs, and then
move on from there. The only way to get the dog to shake was
to keep wetting him down. Once we got the right shake, as
it were, we used a grease pencil to draw his shape and the
directions that his shake would logically go in."
In order to create a realistic representation of the puppies
"spraying" across the room, the Framestore NY team donned
black gloves and gently tossed the small dogs in appropriate
directions, then marked the carpet where each landed. Put
your mind at ease, though; no dogs were harmed in the creation
of this spot.
"We used a stuffed dog for the most extreme positions in the
frame," says Butler. "We were very careful with the cute little
dogs and didn't want anyone to get hurt. We also shot a great
deal of hair-like fibres against greenscreen. We used Flame's
particle generator to augment all these wispy strands in the
air."
For the concluding shot, which sees the little dogs rising
up into the sky, harnesses were initially proposed, only to
prove too uncomfortable for the dogs. Eventually, the dog's
trainers put on green gloves and simply help the small dogs
up. A fan beneath the scene created that appropriate effect,
and gave the canines a definite thrill:
"We moved them around playfully," says Butler. "After a while,
they started to really like the action."
The end sequence for this campaign was created by Superfad.
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