“Esuvee, Keep it on all Fours” by Kleinman
Conference:
Title:
- Esuvee, Keep it on all Fours
Length:
- 1:01
Director(s):
Company / Institution / Agency:
- Framestore CFC
Description:
The action takes place in and around a rodeo, where riders struggle to stay mounted on their “Esuvees” – shaggy-haired, semi-wild beasts that race around the arena like a cross between giant dogs and tigers. We also see the Esuvees out on the road and running in a herd.
Created in Maya, and composited in Inferno, “Keep It On All Fours” was the product of an intense three-month project from R&D to delivery.
The Esuvee’s coat is differentiated, with thick hair and areas of shorter fur. Long hair (and short deadlines) can present problems. Rather than using geometry or curves to get the look, the Framestore CFC team used Paint Effects. The hair was groomed into its rest position using a combination of forces and collisions as well as painstakingly grooming individual hairs by hand. Maya’s hair dynamics were used to drive these curves. Numerous proprietary scripts and plug-ins were created to facilitate the team’s work.
About 80,000 follicles or clumps of hair covered the Esuvee, each containing between 20 and 150 individual hairs. Every shot had to be simulated, and a 75-frame shot (three seconds of screen time) would take up to 20 hours to run.
Software:
Maya, Inferno
Additional Contributors:
Director: Daniel Kleinman, Framestore CFC
Producer: Kleinman Productions – (Production Company) for BBH NY (Agency)
CONTRIBUTORS
Framestore CFC (Team of 22)