Computer Graphics World

Education Supplement 2015

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16 2 0 1 5 E D U C AT I O N & R E C R U I T M E N T S P E C I A L Wrapped T oo often we witness the destructive forces of Mother Nature in VFX films, the most recent being San Andreas. However, the VFX short film "Wrapped," from a group of students at Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg in Germany, looks at the force of nature through a different perspective, showing how the course of time can change everything. The film – from Falko Paeper, Florian Wittmann, and Ro- man Kaelin – has made quite an impact. It won top prize for the Best Student Project at the 2014 SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, as well as the award for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project at the 13 th Annual VES Awards (2015), among other accolades. Paeper, Wittmann, and Kaelin are credited with the bulk of the work – directing, writing, shooting, VFX supervision, editing, 3D animation, and so forth – but they also received as- sistance from several classmates. "Without them, there would have been no chance of finishing this project," Kaelin says. For the first two years at Filmakademie, students learn various aspects of filmmaking, followed by two additional years of working on their own film or assisting others. During this time, they attend workshops and other classes, and meet regularly to discuss their personal projects with fellow students and instructors. "It took us approximately two years from when we started until we had the finished product on screen," says Kaelin of "Wrapped." One of the more tedious processes, Kaelin says, was com- ing up with the story. "There were three of us, and we all wanted it to be something that suited everyone, so we had lots of long discussions," he says. "We started out with a very different idea about street art, and from there worked our way toward what the final idea became. I have no idea how exactly we got here," he adds with a laugh. "I think in the end, it boiled down to the very basics that we all shared a common fascination for." And the inspiration for this 4-minute film? Nature, of course. The trio used time-lapse photography for the shoot, along with typical live-action shots. Then, they integrated the 3D elements into the plates. Some of the shots, how- ever, ended up fully CG. "The plants and the rat, and all the other elements, were created from scratch," Kaelin says. "We developed our own small tool set for our main tasks, like the different plant elements. This way, we could simu- late ivy, ferns, or moss, and let it grow over the remodeled time-lapse shots." One of the more exciting moments, according to Kaelin, was when a system would work properly for the first time and the artists could just let it overgrow something. Nature, however, can be complicated. Finding the right balance for the movement of the plants was often difficult. To guide them, the filmmakers watched numerous docu- mentaries about plant life and time-lapse video of plant growth, helping them to sow the seeds of their concept. "The complexity of the bigger scenes was a little over- whelming at first, too, but with every little piece we created, we were one step further and closer to our target," explains Kaelin. "The scenes where the scale jumps from very tiny to huge were the most complex, and we needed a lot of time to find a way of doing them. We had to find a technique that allowed us to keep control over everything and still have all these elements work in one single shot." The filmmakers used Autodesk's Softimage for almost every aspect of the short. In addition, they used SpeedTree software to grow the larger vegetation, with some assis- tance from Pixologic's ZBrush. ZBrush was also used to create the rat, which was rigged by Pascal Floerks and animated by Jacob Frey. A combination of Softimage, Adobe's Photoshop, and Autodesk's Mudbox were used for texturing, while many camera projections were used for the environment and custom textures for other elements. "We mostly used photographs and scans for the textures, but also incorporated a lot of textures from libraries," says Kaelin. Lighting was achieved with Softimage, and it required the group to match the movement of the sun throughout the shots, since they were time-lapse and the shadows moved. A physical sky system aided in this task, as did additional lights to emphasize certain elements. To handle the various simulations, the crew used Soft- image's ICE, in addition to a range of Mootzoid plug-ins (for example, for some fluids and plant animation); other fluid sims were made within Side Effects' Houdini. For rigid-body simulations and the collapsing of the city, the artists incor- porated Exocortex's Momentum into the pipeline. Other tools included The Foundry's Nuke for compositing and Solid Angle's Arnold plug-in for Softimage for render- ing. "Arnold was perfect because of the sheer amount of geometry we had to render," says Kaelin. Indeed, it was a long project, spanning nearly two years. But the benefits the group reaped were plentiful. "I got into a lot of technical aspects through the production, which definitely helped me expand my horizon regarding CG," Kaelin says. "I also learned to trust my gut." With all the awards and accolades the film has received, it seems that his gut was correct. ■

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