“Nike “Gamebreakers”” by Fincher
Conference:
Title:
- Nike “Gamebreakers”
Length:
- 5:30
Director(s):
Description:
Under the direction of David Fincher, Digital Domain created a 60- second commercial that pitted Michael Vick and Terrell Owens against a team of 35 defenders. This CG commercial required four months of continuous working and reworking the animation to create the look and feel of a cold-winter-night football game. Each scene was previsualized in Lightwave. The stadium, grass, and clothing were modeled in Lightwave. Particle FX (snow, steam) were done with Digital Domain’s proprietary software, Voxel B. Motion-capture data of the football players were brought into Kaydara Motion Builder to be repositioned and choreographed. All secondary animation was done in Maya. Players were then textured, lit, and rendered in Lightwave. All elements were composited in Nuke and Flame.
Hardware:
HARDWARE: 2.4 GHz dual CPU, 2 GB RAM. Graphics card: NVIDIA Quadro750XGL.
Software:
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER: Modeling: Lightwave 3D 7.5c. Animation: Maya 4.5 and FilmBox. Rendering: Lightwave 3D 7.5c. Dynamics: Maya 4.5, Houdini. Compositing: Nuke 4, Flame. Additional software: Cyberscan, Track, Photoshop 7. OS: Win2k and Linux.
Additional Contributors:
Executive Producer: Ed Ulbrich
Visual Effects Supervisor: Eric Barba
Visual Effects Producer: Michael Pardee
CG Supervisor: Richard Morton
Animation Supervisor: Walt Hyneman
FX Weather Supervisor: Nikos Kalaitzidis
Additional Information:
PRODUCTION
Modeling: Coliseum modeled from survey data using our proprietary tracking software and Lightwave 3D. Players were cyberscanned, but only their faces were cleaned up and used. The raw scans of the bodies were used as templates and modeled from scratch in Lightwave 3D. Motion capture blended with keyframe animation. Some rotoscoping used. Rendering technique used most: Lightwave 3D utilizing a combination of image-based rendering and conventional lighting. Average CPU time for rendering per frame: NA Total production time: four months. Production highlight: Developed a pipeline to go in and out of Filmbox, Maya, Lightwave, and Houdini. This allowed us to use the best features of each package.
