Check out this stunning CG animation from Leyenda and read how the creative team put the CG short together using modo, Mental Ray, Nuke and After Effects…
We showcased Leyenda’s character-driven short Buey de Piraña just a few weeks ago and now the Chilean-based studio is back with a superb spec cinematic.
We caught up with Juan Paulo Mardónez who wrote and directed the awesome animation – he explains that they did it in order to showcase the studio’s talents with the hope of getting some real game cinematic work.
We hope it pays off for them, this is great work. In particular, we love the Bokeh effects here…
Ladybug Revel Teaser was made using modo, Maya, Mental Ray, Nuke and After Effects.
“The most impressive technical aspect is composition,” says Mardónez, “because it enhanced everything using Nuke 3D capabilities.”
Nuke proved to be in valuable tool in the production of Ladybug Reveal Teaser
Maya is Leyenda’s standard 3D app, but Mardónez was particularly impressed by modo. “I designed and modelled the soldier: modo is the best polygon application I have ever used. That soldier only took me two days to complete, and it is an improvised model, there was no previous concept design at all.”
modo really impressed Leyenda's CEO Juan Paulo Mardónez. "That soldier only took me two days to complete, and it is an improvised model, no previous concept design at all," he says
“On the composition side of things, I would say Nuke is a tremendous piece of software to composite,” Mardónez continues. “It allowed us to do this with practically no budget at all.”
The team experimented heavily with 3D projections within Nuke, which enabled them to create the backgrounds using only matte paintings. “There is no background created with any type of 3D render at all,” explains Mardónez.
Motion capture was an area that Leyenda also experimented with: “We tried to use it, even recorded one day of action with it, but it was so painful to cleanup and this teaser was so simple, that we decided to keyframe it by hand instead. Our animators are great and flexible, so they can do cartoon or realistic animation,” explains Mardónez.
The biggest technical challenge issue was Deph of field. “It’s known that DOF compositing solutions could give some strange results at the edges of geometry, so we solved this with an excellent Nuke plugin called Bokeh, from Peregine Labs.”
“Making DOF with Bokeh, was easy, fast and most important beautiful.”
There’s a fabulous shot that travels from a wide angle to a macro lens to reveal the ladybug, of which Mardónez is very proud. “All this effect was composited combining the extraordinary capabilities of Nuke and Bokeh,” he says. “Of course, our artists compositing talent make this possible!”
A couple of the scenes really tested the studio’s talent: The last one, where the laser targeting system lock onto the soldier is one such scene.
“Here Boked was crucial since it allowed to animate the focal range easily,” Mardónez explains. “It also contains customisable optical flares shapes, which are beautiful and flexible.”
“In general, we wanted to use DOF heavily through this teaser to give this sort of macro feeling and to draw a connection between the small character and the human-sized characters.”
See more great work from Leyenda at its website
Posted on Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 5:00 pm under Shorts, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: Animated short, Friday Animation Fun, Ladybug Reveal Teaser, Leyenda
The world's leading magazine for CG artists Subscribe Now
