Archive | VFX
Hatch Studios was approached by Pixelcarve to assist in the development of a complex animated video for Hydrostor, showcasing how the large-scale long-duration energy storage system works. Titled “A-CAES” (Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage), the Hydrostor energy plant is a proven proprietary technology that can cut carbon pollution at scale. Hatch Studios used state-of-the-art 3D […]
Hatch Studios was approached by Sinking Ship Entertainment to assist with the development of an exciting, colorful and impactful promotional logo for their forthcoming Dino Dex series. Using 3D animation, Hatch recreated the Dino Dex logo set in a pre-historic tropical environment, featuring a stone carved “Dex” logo. The “Dino” portion drops in and cracks […]
PurposeBuilt Brands approached Hatch Studios with a two-pronged task. First, update their 2D Green Gobbler character to a more modern design that would better represent the brand. Secondly, develop a 3D version of the Green Gobbler for various types of marketing purposes, including it’s debut appearance in a 3D animated commercial. The result is a […]
A 3D animated production using motion capture data applied to a model of a person. Any type of effect can then be added, such as hair, so as to produce unique results. The motion data in this example was developed by Charlie Diliberto using a modern motion capture performance suit. Mocap produces ultra-realistic motion which […]
Hatch Studios was tasked with developing a third 3D animated video showcasing Nordock’s advanced AR-20K vehicle restraint. The explainer video had to detail the features of the updated restraint, and show how it provides significant benefit over previous models, as well as the competition. Rendered with cutting-edge, high-quality 3D computer graphics, Hatch Studios’ latest AR-20K […]
Hatch Studios developed a 3D animated video showcasing the Riino electric rail system autonomous mining vehicle. Capable of climbing high-degree grades, it greatly cuts down ramp travel distances resulting in lower costs. Capable of 50 km/hour on inclines and 80 km/hour on flat surfaces, it is the fastest moving vehicle on a mine site. Check […]
Hatch Studios was commissioned by Samsung to develop a video promo for their Galaxy line. The video was to be projected across 4x 1080p screens, totaling a whopping 7680×1080 (essentially 8K horizontally). The level of detail is astounding and it is encouraged to view the video at a 1:1 ratio, if you have monitors capable […]
This project examines the possibilities of using Particle Flow to generate hundreds of thousands of cubes and displacing them according to any given texture. The intensity of every pixel determines the cube displacement, and the color is mapped accordingly. The use of 3D graphics for beautiful, abstract imagery opens up endless possibilities for unique, seldom-seen […]
Bob Dobbs approached Hatch Studios to develop a 15-minute motion graphics and 3D animated video explaining the characteristics of each of the 14 Rings on the Angel Chart. Although this project proved to be challenging in bringing such abstract terminology to life through animated visual examples, it also proved to be quite fun for the […]
This is from the ShadeFX Awning video developed for PixelCarve for ShadeFX Canada, an awning deployment company for home and business. Pixelcarve required four animation sequences created from still images depicting the ShadeFX awning system performing throughout different weather. All sequences were created with After Effects using dynamic lighting changes, stock footage, color correction and […]
These are high resolutions, originally rendered at 10000×4225, testing out the VRay fog feature in 3dsmax. When combined with 3D procedural textures, truly unique results can be achieved. VRay fog offers many useful variables including density settings that allow the fog to become more solid, as well as falloff controls that allow the fog to […]
Hatch Studios was approached by Sinking Ship Entertainment to develop the CGI component for their new pilot series. This involved developing the robots, modeling them, animating them, texturing them, rendering them and compositing them into their shot footage. The result is a multitude of beautiful shots with nicely-integrated CGI robots into existing film. We attended […]
A spot created for the Alzheimer’s Society of British Columbia that has received numerous mentions in the media including a spot in SHOOT Online’s quarterly top ten.
These images were creating using 3dsmax’s Particle Flow to generate chaotic particles within polygonal objects which were then traced with Anselm von Seherr’s Particle Flow tracer script. They were afterwards composited, processed and color corrected within Photoshop.
This is my entry for the CGTalk FXWars competition entitled “Queen Of The Rocketmen”, for fall, 2009. The premise was to create a scene based on good vs. evil during the WW2 era. CGTalk hosts monthly FXWars challenges with a heavy focus on CGI for visual effects. My CGTalk WIP thread can be found here. […]
A short crash-zoom sequence created at Hatch Studios for the latest Roger’s Communication spot. Modeled and animated with 3dsmax 2009, rendered with VRay 1.5 SP3 and composited with After Effects and Combustion.
This is a short tag for Crystal Light completed by Hatch Studios Ltd. The concept involved creating an explosive burst of vivid color within each glass to replicate the exciting mixing water effect. The tag finishes off with a virtual product box with an animated liquid pour. We established early in pre-production that we were […]
This is the second of two station ID tags created at Hatch Studios Ltd. for Astral’s “Z-Tele” channel. In this second installment, we follow an assembly line from start to finish, showing the Z-Tele sphere being formed. Like the first cinematic, the robotic arms, claws & pulleys act as our catalyst to move us through […]
This is the first of two station ID tags created at Hatch Studios Ltd. for Astral’s “Z-Tele” channel. The premise here was to create an impactful sequence that would fit into Z-Tele’s programming themes and styles. I developed a sub-story in which we follow a macroscopic machine powering up. The electrical current acts as the […]
These are a series of animated ID tags created by Hatch Studios Ltd. for Astral’s broadcasting campaign. They feature the Z-Tele logo transforming into a living TV machine, as well as collapsing into the logo once more. This project is part of a series of projects for Astral, all of which can be seen in […]
Hatch and Dashan showcase three Ford vehicles in three dream-like environments in this 60 second spot for the Chinese Canadian market.
A simple clean graphic treatment of hand drawn frames composited and tracked around each of the women’s faces. Also a cg rendered water effect to demonstrate the moisture retaining strength of the product.
Ford “Ice” is the latest spot to come out of Hatch Studios Ltd. featuring computer generated vehicles, environments and VFX shots produced in full 1080P HD. The spot features a Fusion making an epic journey across two continents and freezing its surrounding environment in doing so. This is synonymous with Ford’s tagline: “Create a reaction.” […]
An elegant type treatment that was to fit in organically with the live action environment.
Global Illumination radiance works through the transmission of light bouncing off various objects and taking a predetermined amount of that object’s diffuse color with it. By setting a secondary bounce limit, you can increase or decrease rendertimes significantly and control the amount of environmental light distribution throughout your scene. This simple experiment was produced in […]
This was a production test developed during pre-production of the Ford “Ice” spot. Created in only a number of days, the background was a matte painting combined with CGI environment, Particle Flow snow and a modest amount of post-production. Created with 3dsmax, VRay and After Effects.
These are tests using 3dsmax’s physics simulation plugin, Reactor. These simulations focus specifically on rigid bodies involving large quantities of elements, each with appropriate size, weight and friction properties. In addition, there are collision objects which are always color-coded in blue. Although the nature of these tests is rather simple, creating a fully-functional and physically-correct […]
A piece showcasing Kellogg’s new light-up spoons! This spot required pack replacement.
This is a photo composite matte painting created for CGTalk’s Matte Painting Challenge, Natural History Museum. The objective was to take the supplied image plate and develop it into a fantasy landscape centuries from now in which nature has completely taken over. There were three main stages to complete: The removal of all people and […]
Ford “Accessories” is a cutting-edge spot created by Hatch Studios for Ford, represented by Y&R Canada. The spot is 100% CGI, combined with photo elements. The spot features the 2007 Ford F150 accessories transforming onto the truck from various dynamic angles. As the parts continue to transform, the pacing increasingly builds up until the commercial […]
This was a one day project produced at Hatch Studios Ltd. to develop a 100% computer simulated dynamics-driven domino sequence. The only keyframed part of this entire animation is the first domino which was animated to fall onto the second and therefore trigger the reaction. The sequence was completely generated with 3dsmax’s Reactor system and […]
This is a test involving morphing metablob elements. The purpose was to achieve a fluid transition from one object into another without the laborious use of geometric morph targets. This was achieved by animating metablob elements from one position into another while keeping their blob threshold within limits of one another. This results in an […]
Jamba! “Mobile” was produced in early 2006 for Jamba! represented by Michael Kocurek at Infosection e.K. Jamba! “Mobile” features “Swead”, the curious little red monster who many of you may remember from several years ago. Since then, “Swead” has gone on to win numerous awards while gaining international recognition. It was partially due to his […]
These are the character prints developed for our short film, D.A.N.D.Y. I performed texturing, lighting and rendering for these prints and they were a lot of fun. I created six different versions of the robots; the clean civilian, the rusting civilian, the rusted civilian, the police, the military and the EPA. Because we wanted to […]
Diet Pepsi “After Hours” is a 30-second, fully computer generated commercial recently produced for showcase during the 2005 Academy Awards on American broadcast stations. It was completed in about one and half months, with a crew of about 8 core artists at Redrover Animation Studios Ltd. “After Hours” focuses on creative story development, stylized character […]
A short but fun animation sequence produced for Mountain Dew, using a test track from the late (and great) John Candy. The background here was actually created physically by myself using real Montain Dew cans and boxes, then lit, and finally photographed. The 3D cans were then lit using image-based lighting from the photography, which […]
This was a test produced in order to achieve a similar effect to a watercolor ink being applied to paper. The example below was created with Particle Flow in 3dsmax 6.0 by animating an emitter along a spline and animating the speed (spread) of the particles. The slower the emission, the thinner the line and […]
This was a small motion test of Tony the Tiger in 3D we produced over a short period of time for a pitch. Kyle Dunlevy did a great job on the animation and I used every trick in the book to make the shot appear energetic and full of action – which was difficult since […]
The Cornell Box is a simple physical environment in which lighting, geometry, and material reflectance properties are measured and then compared to a computer generated model in order to test simulated lighting accuracy. This paper focuses on the construction of a physical Cornell Box model and all lighting tests associated with it. Perhaps the most […]
The Atrium Sponza Palace, Dubrovnik, is an elegant model created by Marko Dabrovic at RNA Studio. It was graciously donated to the public for a radiosity competition held by CGTechniques.com in 2002 and was kindly converted by Christian Bauer into numerous other formats (Max, 3ds, Dxf, Obj, Dwg, Vrml97, Mega Pov, Rhino) for use with […]
The following technique explains how one can simulate the effect of radiance (diffuse colour transfer from object to object) through the use of object-localized lights. This technique effectively eliminates the use of any global illumination renderer and is therefore applicable by virtually any competent 3D animation software. The concept of simulating radiance is rather simple, […]
Dome lighting is actually a rather old rendering technique which was used several years ago for simulating global illumination before consumer-based global illumination renderers were widely available. The advantages are primarily speed, but at the sacrifice of (substantial) quality. In contrast, however, flickering in animation due to global illumination sample artifacting is eliminated because the […]
A simple test combining glossy and sharp reflections layered together on one object, as a post process. Similar process to that of car paint. Rendered with VRay 1.45.70.
Lexus “Topographical” was produced to introduce Lexus’ new GX SUV model. The creative idea was to replace the environment with a computer generated topographical elevation map. The live action was shot in the desert mountains near Los Angeles using a helicopter. Lexus “Topographical” was created by first tracking the live action footage using Boujou. The […]
This was a test produced in order to achieve a similar effect to a “Pin Art” toy which creates images by extending an array of pins. This effect is quite simple actually, and the basic concept is to map the luminance values of a source image to geometry displacement. The brighter the pixel, the greater […]
The Cornell Box is a simple physical environment in which lighting, geometry, and material reflectance properties are measured and then compared to a computer generated model in order to test simulated lighting accuracy. This paper focuses on the reconstruction of a virtual Cornell Box model and all virtual lighting tests associated with it. The image […]
This was a shot we had to produce which involved a jug of Bayer Bronate Herbicide shaking off mud like a dog shakes off water. It was actually quite complex for many reasons. First of all, the RealFlow (which was used for the fluid dynamics) derives it’s motion blur based on vertex velocity whereas VRay […]
This image was created as a test for VRay’s advanced micro displacement feature. The geometric object you see below is a simple 16×16 grid plane with a basic 288 triangles / 144 quads. VRay’s displacement technology is able to subdivide geometry at rendertime. Treating a standard image for optimal displacement is difficult. While this is […]
“Totalphone” was a unique commercial which introduced three cells coming together to form a ‘new species of wireless’ – a new mobile phone rate/plan from Rogers AT&T. The challenge was to create fun and interesting cells while making sure they did not look unpleasant or disturbing. We accomplished this through the use of bright colors […]
Robaxacet was completed approximately one month ago and is currently playing in Canada. This is the first of a series of spots featuring the familiar Robaxacet puppets in a new advertising campaign – the full integration of the CG puppets into live action sets. Because the animation had to be very realistic, we had live […]
This was a 7 second tag recently completed for Mountain Dew’s new Citrus flavor. The spot was fairly straight forward, although it was a tight schedule lasting only about 2 weeks. The crushing can was produced by creating multiple morph targets and animating from one to the next. The liquid was created using RealFlow. The […]
Absorption is used for simulating translucency. Unlike Sub-Surface Light Scattering (SSS, 3S), the light is absorbed within the subject instead of bouncing about and contributing to internal illumination. The following are various renders testing absorption with VRay. (Original renders were 4x as big.) “Venus” and “Athene” models are from the Deespona 3D model collection. “Dragon” […]
Glade was a 6 second product demo recently completed in just over a week. The requirements were to show the product in action, as well as the exterior shell and interior electronics. There were two versions completed, yet only the first one was used. The spot was modeled and animated with 3D Studio MAX, rendered […]
This was a project originally created in 2002 and later re-rendered in 2014. The animation was creating by dynamically simulating a row of dominos using 3dsmax’s Reactor, then duplicating the rows and curving them using splines. While this effect works fairly well, you can see geometric distortion on some dominos in sharp turns. The ramps […]
This is one of the earliest 3D scans from the Computer Graphics Laboratory 3D Scanning Repository at Stanford University. It has been widely used in the 3D industry for rendering engine tests due to it’s high polygon count. The original comes in the University’s .PLY format and contains 543,652 vertices and 1,087,716 triangles. However, after […]
This was a short, in-studio test developed over the span of only two days. The premise was to recreate obstacles in 3D from a photograph, so as to have Realflow fluids interact realistically with them. The 3D objects also provided a basis from which to derive shadows, ambient occlusion and much more. Obviously, we couldn’t […]
Toyota Matrix “Shift Reality” was a spot just recently completed in under 1 month for both cinema and television broadcast. The concept was to show an animated commercial in which Toyota’s new car accelerates to such high speeds that the air resistance ‘peels’ off the animation thus revealing the live-action vehicle underneath. We then follow […]
“Cameroon” was a combination of traditional animation, computer animation, and heavy graphic design, all carefully coordinated together to create a powerful and bold spot for Puma. The environment was first built in 3D, whereupon camera moves were planned out and then printed out as layouts for the traditional animators to work with. For scenes during […]
BubbaXtreme was yet another spot created for Mexico. It involved both traditional and computer animation, both interacting with live action. The product, a lollipop, had to be built in 3D for a 3 second product demo featured halfway through the spot. The lollipop actually proved to be quite challenging due to the translucent nature of […]
These two digital tests were created for Coca-Cola in order to demonstrate how we could grab one of their original Sundbloom Santa Claus paintings and bring it to life through animation. In the first test, this was achieved by first using Elastic Reality to alter Santa’s face to create a winking movement, along with other […]
This project required digital touch-ups for the feature film “Thomas and the Magic Railroad”. After the plates were shot, it was realized that the train needed to have dust on it, in order to suggest age and inactivity. Because the original footage was shot clean, the only way to achieve this was to add the […]
There were a total of 5 spots created for Bayer Mexico, under my direction. The advertising agency was BBDO Mexico and I had the pleasure of working with creative director Carl Jones. All of the spots called for live action integration, so there was a fair amount of shooting done for these jobs, also under […]
This spot involved creating a fully working animated engine which would be composited as a cross-section view of the car’s internal workings. This was actually really challenging, since I know as much about engines as I know about Quantum physics. (That would be ‘not much.’) Therefore, extensive research into the workings of it, had to […]
There were a total of 5 spots created for Bayer Mexico, under my direction. The advertising agency was BBDO Mexico and I had the pleasure of working with creative director Carl Jones. All of the spots called for live action integration, so there was a fair amount of shooting done for these jobs, also under […]
The following two spots were created for Post Honeycomb cereal and involved the “Craver” character. The physical model was actually purchased from Industrial Light and Magic, since they had created the initial few commercials with an animatronic character. The character was then rebuilt in Softimage using the model for reference which, once completed, was treated […]
This spot for Kellogg’s was pretty cool since we got the chance to model and animate Mr. Miniwheat in 3D. He was to be integrated with live action, so the shooting had to be done before the animation process began. Although the commercial was in French and required a substantial amount of lip-synching, the language […]
This spot involved a combination of both 3D animation as well as 2D warping, using Elastic Reality. The challenge was to animate a shark talking using previously shot stock footage. This was accomplished by using the same method as that in the movie “Babe”, in which the shark face was modeled with multiple mouth positions […]