About this video
I think that since I almost went bald getting this project out on time, the least I could do is publish it, right? The premise was clear: 20 days to create 3 different environments, and around 90 seconds of CG across about 30/40 shots many of them at night with rain. From the time I had, I decided to dedicate as much as possible to pre-production, because I knew that if I started running around like a headless chicken, I wouldn’t make it once the feedback rounds began (yes, there were plenty of those too, of course). So I picked a real circuit and replicated part of its layout (the choice was Monza, of course). I delegated some tasks that I knew could be handled in parallel, like the car texturing (thanks Miriam Peralta Carrero), the rig (thanks Ivan Pais), and the crowd design which, even though they were in the distance, had to be animated since the client initially wanted detailed shots. I focused on making the track as procedural as possible, and on building all the animations together for the actions we needed to show, so that once everything was set up it would “only” be a matter of choosing the camera angle to render from and the frame range. My tools of choice were Cinema for animation/rig/cameras and Houdini for assembly and the final render. Fast rendering was crucial since we couldn’t afford frames over 90 seconds, so I had to resort to every trick in the book — and then some. Rendering rain in 3D wasn’t viable, neither were volumetrics/atmospherics, which I ended up doing entirely in After Effects. I had to sacrifice some quality in order to reach the finish line. And here’s the result! I hope you like it. I really enjoyed making it despite the tight schedule
About SalmeInMotion
Credits
José Iván Salmerón Segovia