“Codehunters” by Axis Animation

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Conference:


SIGGRAPH Video Review:


Track:


    10

Title:


    Codehunters

Director(s):


Company / Institution / Agency:


  • Axis Animation

Description:


    “Codehunters” tells the story of four heroes who join forces to battle corrupt gangs, rampaging monsters, and the tyran-nical Khann in the crumbling port city of Lhek. The story is set in the not-too-distant future and uses a stunning mix of Eastern anime and Western animation techniques.

    Axis Animation developed several innovative techniques during the production that helped them translate the illustration style into 3D CG animation and made use of several off-the-shelf software packages (Modo, Maya, Lightwave) glued together with a proprietary pipeline developed in-house.

    A combination of high-detail subdivision surface models and hand-painted texture and “paint stroke” maps was modeled, rigged, and animated then lit and rendered in various passes: key, fill, rim lighting, volumetrics, fog, ambient occlu-sion, “toonline” detail, and various particle-driven voxel passes for the VFX, which were then subsequently combined in Discreet’s Combustion compositing software, where the final look was obtained by blending the layers and adding 2D effects and colour correctors.

    PRODUCTION:

    Modeling: Polygons/subdivision surfaces Rendering: Average-CPU-time-per-frame, 20-60 minutes.
    Production time: three months.

Hardware:


    CG: PC Xeon 2.4GHz CPU, 4GB RAM Render farm: 60 CPUs
    Editing: Mac G5
    Maya, Lightwave, z-Brush, combustion, and Final Cut pro

Software:


    Modeling: Lightwave/Modo/Maya Texturing: Z-brush/Photoshop Animation: Maya/Lightwave
    Lighting, Rendering, VFX: Lightwave Compositing: Combustion/AfterFX Editing: Final Cut Pro
    OS: Windows XP/Mac OSX

Additional Contributors:


    Production Company: Blinkink

    Producer: Bart Yates

    Director: Ben Hibon

    Editor: Ben Hibon

    Screenplay: Ben Hibon & Mark Hillman

    Concept and Storyboard: Ben Hibon

    Score: Joris de Man

    Sound Design: Joris de Man

    3D Animation: Axis Animation

    Executive Producers: Imke Fehrmann, Richard Scott

    Post Production: The Mill

Animation / Video Overview:


Type: