Case Study – Hotelicopter Viral Animation

Production Company: PerspectX

Client: Hotelicopter

Role: Modeling, Texturing, Effects, Lighting, Compositing, Animation

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In the spring of 2009, we were contacted by a soon to be in airport hotel booking company, to help pull off an internet hoax.  The idea, based around the name of their venture, was to create an illusion of a supersized transport helicopter, converted in to an in-air travel/hotel service.  Not exactly what Hotelicopter does literally, except for the name sake.

They wanted a vehicle inspired by the Soviet MI-12, the largest helicopter built and test flown, as the basis of the look and feel of the Hotelicopter.  Also, they wanted some still ‘photography’ and ‘video clips’ which were of course renders and animation that had to at least convince the somewhat gullible.

So with a few weeks before April Fools day we set about modeling and texturing the Hotelicopter.  Early drafts included a hot tub, party deck, but were ruled out as too obvious to not be feasible in a real vehicle.  All work on this project was done in Modo, including stills and animation.  Photoshop and AfterEffects were of course used to composite final results with photographic materials.  Allan Soriano did the principal work on the project.

Take a moment and visit the web site http://aprilfools.hotelicopter.com which was the original hotelicopter (viral) site.  Adam Healey and his team constructed a terrific viral marketting campaign as a real venture – resulting in tens of millions of views on their site, actual attempted bookings, and BBC and US network coverage as a possible hoax.

Of course on April 2, the joke was up – but we were proud to have worked on one of the biggest aircraft related hoaxes in internet history .

Here are some links to YouTube videos produced as a part of the hoax.

The project was short and a lot of fun, and resulted in other viral related projects, and we hope to do more in the future.

Any input or questions are appreciated.

Case Study – Nutritional Related Animations

Production Company: Alvey Media Group

Client: Abbot

Role: Modeling, Texturing, Effects, Lighting, Compositing, Animation

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A few months ago we had the pleasure of working on a couple of nutritional animations that demonstrate the effects of lactose intolerance – at a cellular level, on infants’ digestive systems.

As we have in the past, we worked with Alvey Media Group, a production company (and one of our first clients), to conceptualize and develop the animation, to be incorporated in to two distinct videos.  This article is about how lactose intolerance triggers allergens at the cellular level.

First off, we had to do research on several cellular abstracts – host cells, IGE’s, lactose cells, and histamine.  We had some video reference produced by other companies, a lot of illustrations from old text books to start with.

We set out using ZBrush to quickly prototype the host cell, the IGE antibodies, and the Lactose molecules.  We were going for a stylized, electron microscope video sort of look with both videos.

Since there needed to be potentially thousands of IGE entities in the shot, we needed a very low polygon model that used displacement to show almost endless detail.  The low resolution model featured 80 polygons, and was used with Maya particle dynamics to simulate the attraction and collision with the host cell, as well as attachment to the surface.  The tesselated (baked to polygons) version of the IGE molecule, was some 120,000 faces – We could not afford 120 million polygons in our scene.

We proposed a variety of simulation tests and renders for approval from the client.

Here is a shot breakdown for one of the shots (showing additional elements grafted in)

And here are a couple of highlight clilps of the 1:10 of animation produced for the project:

Any comments, questions, or advice greatly appreciated.

Case Study – Sikorsky Web Experience

Production Company: AcSys Interactive, Inhance Digital

Client: Sikorsky

Role: Modeling, Texturing, Effects, Lighting, Animation

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The Vision Room is an interactive kiosk application that allows users to explore numerous Sikorsky and Schweizer Aircraft – both civilian and military variations. Using the same digital collateral deployed on Sikorsky’s web site project, we added 11 more aircraft and variations to give users an interactive experience of no less than 23 different aircraft.

Inhance Digital was commissioned to lead the project, and having just completed 3D work for the Sikorsky web site under AcSys Interactive, we were in a good position to continue the work for the interactive application.

Each aircraft had to be built from scratching using 3 Views and reference, some of which was very sketchy or antiquated. In some cases aircraft engineering data were available which required cleanup and additional detailing.

Once an aircraft was completed, it had to be animated for landing and takeoff sequences based on video reference. Also some basic interactive ‘tumbling’ sequences were done on each aircraft for the interactive experience in the Vision Room. Four artists worked on the project.

Each aircraft went through an ardent inspection process and changes had to be executed quickly delaying the remaining development.

The short delivery schedule was met. We continue to work actively with AcSys Interactive and Sikorsky on various projects.  For more details or to see the system live, visit Sikorsky’s web site at http://www.sikorsky.com.

Any comments or questions are appreciated.