CineSys

NHL Legends Unite with the Help of VFX

Darling is a post-production company that specializes in colour grade, VFX and finishing for international advertising. The team at Darling recently worked on an ad for the Canadian Cancer Society, who partnered with NHL and NHLPA to unite the hockey community in support of people living with cancer and their families. Paul Binney, Flame Artist and Partner at Darling, gave us an insight into the process and how they created this important ad for a great cause. This was a great project with a bold and ambitious idea. We were asked to composite many different NHL legends together on the bench over multiple shots. The idea was to visually illustrate the line: "When it comes to cancer, we’re all on the same team."The initial challenges were unique. Darling had to marry footage of different eras seamlessly together. Not only were the broadcast colours of the vintage footage different from that of contemporary footage, but they often had different frame rates, aspect ratios and scan modes. Darling were getting an assortment of footage and we truly were at the mercy of what was being provided. Getting a composite like this to work is a sleight of hand and this is where Autodesk Flame shined bright.

Capturing the Spirit of the World Cup using Autodesk Flame and Maya

JAMM is an independently owned, artist-driven visual effects studio known for delivering exceptional creative. Most recently, the team worked on a commercial for FOX Sports to promote the US men's national team at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. There was a very short turnaround. First they shot the players on an empty field in Austin, Texas, and then they had to create the background objects, including the stadium and crowd. There was not enough time to have the numbers printed on the player’s jerseys in the commercial, so they had to add those via Autodesk Flame.

Dancing milk glasses animated in Maya

The Vanity is a collective of VFX artists, colourists, and motion designers. They were approached by the agency Broken Heart Love Affair as a creative partner for Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s Milk Glass campaign. Initially, they had a rough animatic and the base concept of this anthropomorphic milk glass. There was a specific set of activities that the client wanted to show and since it is essentially a pantomime, the choices for animation of the glass, props, and sound queues all needed to be very deliberate to convey the activity. Since there was an existing animatic they were able to nail down the whole spot pretty quickly, although a lot of time was spent on getting the pacing to feel just right. We spoke with CG Supervisor Josh Clifton about the project.Once the animation was set, the team at The Vanity could start creating the real star of the piece, milk. One of the hardest parts of a job like this is that you are creating the client’s product. Since they had really liked the clean, minimalist look for the glass and the environment; the big question was how do you keep the milk in the glass as it jumps around and still have it feel natural? In the end the team threw together a quick system that would reduce the intensity of the animation to get the right amount of sloshing. That original animation was then applied to the simulation and you’ve got yourself a dancing milk glass. Well almost. The biggest unknown with this project was the best way to approach the bubbles. Milk has bubbles! How do you keep the bubbles consistent and art directable throughout the entire piece? Short answer, you fake it. They made a couple hero bubble stills as CG assets. These were then comped and tracked on to the top of the glass as needed. Since the bubbles are such an important part of the look of the milk. Having them as a separate element made it much easier to control without the need to go back to CG and re-render entire shots. Now, we have a finished glass of milk.