17 CLICK 3X

STUDIO PHILOSOPHY

New York–Cbased Click 3X produces cutting-edge visual solutions for commercials, feature films, television, music videos, and broadcast clients around the globe. In addition to Click 3X’s com-mercial and film expertise, their interactive design studio, ClickFire Media, specializes in multiplatform, media-rich interactive campaigns. Haunt is a division that specializes in cutting-edge motion design for music videos, virals, and installations and has worked with many of the industry’s top music talent and directors. Click 3X Entertainment focuses on broadcast branding and design, rounding out the company’s expertise for every screen.

GOARMY.COM

Creative and Production Process When pre-sented with this exciting concept for goArmy.com, we were eager to be part of this new interactive campaign. The project heavily touched upon several aspects of CGI from modeling and animation to photorealistic textures and lighting techniques. Our objective was to create an expansive, high-tech, visually pleasing U.S. Army base where we could take the viewer on a dynamic journey using a series of camera fly-through moves that lead them to informational hot spots.

The first step in our process was to begin with modeling. This included everything from all the necessary buildings, entrance gates, and training facilities down to sidewalks and floodlights, all while keeping in mind that we would later go back and add refinements to these models mostly dependent on how close our cameras would come to them.

We simultaneously began to develop our base layout from an aerial view that would later serve as the viewer’s central hub position, bringing them into any of the 11 informational hot spots. We wanted to be at an aesthetically pleasing distance from the base so that the viewer could see and fully appreciate all the foreground details and activities as well as keep the base expansive enough to allow for the dynamic camera moves that we planned.

After developing our layout, we proceeded on to animation, which basically consisted of all the camera fly-through moves as well as all common everyday activities such as Jeeps driving around and soldiers training. The idea here was that once the viewer goes to the goArmy.com website, there would be an introduction animation taking us to the central hub position. It is there that the viewer would see all the activity on the base and then would be given a choice on which informational hot spot they would like to explore. Once they click on it, we would seamlessly transition into one of our camera fly-through moves taking them to that spot. So it was essential that we matched all of the camera starting and ending positions. The other consideration was that all the activity on the base needed to seamlessly transition from the introduction animation as well as be a loopable element to allow for the viewers to stay on the central hub position for as long as they chose.

Upon completion of the animation process, texturing, and UV mapping, the geometry was our next integral step. Starting with various references of Army bases we were able to determine what materials and textures the various parts of the base should have. Some buildings would be made out of concrete, some would have metal rooftops,the Jeeps and vehicles would all need to feel very diverse, and the building interiors would all serve their own purpose, down to the camouflage uniforms the soldiers were wearing. The topology of the land including the ground and sidewalks was broken out into a series of quadrants with hi-res textures stitched together, giving us necessary control to add greater resolution on the panels that the camera directly flew over. This allowed us to come as close as two or three feet off the ground at times. The same approach of having the camera distance dictate texture resolution went into everything else on the base.

At that point we were able to go in and further fill our environment with secondary elements and details such as trees, shrubbery, and grass using Vue software. This brings us to our final steps in the process, lighting and rendering.

For most of the outdoor shots our main lighting source was image base lighting where we primarily used 32-bit sky images as well as rendering out 32 bit images to allow for greater color correction control.

All of our renders were broken out into layers, giving Flame full control over compositing and color correction, the final phase of production.

Tools Maya (3D package), Vue (environment elements such as the trees), Flame (compositing)

Credits

Creative Director: Steve Tozzi

Director of CG: Anthony Filipakis

CG Artist—Animation/Rigging: Susan Taaffe

CG Artists—Lighting/Texturing: Grace Hwang, Sung kim

CG Artists—Modeling/Animation: Jongmoon Woo, kristin Pedersen

Flame Artist: John Budion