Human Behavior – The Virtual vs. Real Controversy Between Humans and Machines
Students at Ansbach College, Germany, created a short story that places a dancer’s graceful motion against the crude and clumsy movements of a machine.
This film – created in Full HD – is a combination of real film footage and 3D elements created in CINEMA 4D by students of the Ansbach Academy during the degree course Multimedia & Communication. This project presented the particular challenge of seamlessly combining real film footage with the CG elements in which emphasis was placed on the implementation of 3D Graphics. In addition to Matchmoving and extensive color correction, an accurate animation of the robot and realistic, efficient rendering were key to successfully completing this project.
"Since the final robot model was fairly detailed, a low-poly version was also created and used to optimize the animation workflow. Using the new XRef function and a custom C.O.F.F.E.E. script we were able to switch between low-poly and high-poly versions at the press of a button. This also made it possible to easily switch the scenes between animation, lighting and rendering setups. Furthermore, changes to models and materials could be easily made before the final rendering was done", explains Jan Bubenik, post-production supervisor, rigging, animation, rendering.
Jan continues, "More than ten passes were rendered (RGBA, diffuse, specular, reflection, shadow, ambient occlusion, depth of field, motion vector, and several object channels), which was made easy thanks to CINEMA 4D’s Multi-Pass functionality. The ease of use of the NET Render module made it possible to quickly send scenes to all available clients for rendering."
The CINEMA 4D modules Thinking Particles and PyroCluster were used to create the particles for the destruction of the pillars.
Jan recalls the reaction of the film’s dancer after hearing this scene described: "Upon first being introduced to the dancer, we described the scene to her in which the pillar is destroyed and the robot topples and falls, upon which she asked how large the robot actually is. As we told her the robot would stand approx. 3.5 meters tall she became concerned and asked, ‘Are you sure it’s safe? I mean, the robot won’t fall on me or anything, will it?’ Since she was purely a stage performer, the world of 3D and VFX was completely unknown to her."
Click here to see the 2-minute film:
http://www.humanbehaviour.de
http://www.humanbehaviour.de/HumanBehaviour_H264_720p.mov
Artists:
Jan Bubenik (post-production supervisor, rigging, animation, rendering)
Christina Ziem (lead compositor & color correction)
Nikolaus Wiedemann (modeling, shading)
Orhan Bingöl (lighting, rendering)
Marcel Weisrock (modeling, particles)
Holger Aumuller (texturing)
Christiane Sinzger & Sabine Tiefenböck (color correction & rotoscoping)
Duration:
Pre-production: 45 days
Filming: 3 days
Post-production: 5 months