Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/8034
and color to help kids associate with each charac- ter’s individual traits.” To bring the characters and environments to life, Blur used Autodesk’s Softimage for character animation and modeling. The artists completed the environments and effects using Autodesk’s 3ds Max, and used Mental Images’ Mental Ray to render the spots and add cinematic lighting effects. With compelling characters and lots of adventure, Blur modeled and animated the characters and backgrounds using Softimage, and used 3ds Max for further set work and for effects. characters needed to be like a community of friends that kids can identify with,” says Santos. “Each Goldfi sh character has a distinct personality, from exuberant to adventurous, and the animation really brought them to life. It was important that each could be expressive in close-up shots, and they needed to talk and emote with believability.” Rice points out, “We worked carefully on the character rigging, color, and textures to give them a lifelike feel, and emphasized their distinct personalities through shape, form, Blur created a cinematic series that hooked young audiences even further into the Goldfi sh world. While each TV spot is a self-contained adventure, when viewed in a series on the Web, they play like a six-minute animated short fi lm. For Blur, the project was a true pleasure to produce. “This was such a great campaign to work on. It’s character-driven and story-driven—an epic journey,” says Shier. For Young & Rubicam, the experience was positive, as well. Says Millott, “Blur artists are not only incredibly creative, they are also just great people to work with.” As for Gilbert … you’ll have to check blur.com to fi nd out how he fared. ■ Windows-32 /Windows-64 / OSX-32 /OS X-64 32-bitonly $399 High Performance CameraTracking Use SynthEyes for animated critter insertion, fixing shaky shots, virtual set extensions, making 3Dmovies, architectural previews, accident reconstruction,virtual product placement, face and body capture, andmore. Includes Stereoscopic features used in AVATAR March 2010 11