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Putting the bloom into AT&T’s latest commercial

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Andy Nicholas, our Lead 3D artist explains in depth how he helped AT&T bloom in their latest and very charming spot - Spring!

The commercial from BBDO New York featured landmarks and locations all over the US being covered in orange flowers. The idea is that the flowers act as a metaphor for the network coverage that AT&T provides to its cell phone customers.  Since creating convincing vegetation in computer graphics can be a challenge it was essential to research a variety of techniques and develop tools in advance to make sure the shots were completed on time.

One tool was a vine-growing simulation created using ICE in Autodesk's XSI. ICE is a fast and flexible environment which makes it easy to test a wide range of ideas very quickly. For close ups, a hand animated rig was used in the immediate foreground while the particle simulation was used for the rest of the layout.

There were only a few shots in the commercial that required seeing the vines and flowers grow together, but the growing simulation was still used for many of the static shots (e.g. Washington Street, Chicago) as it gave a natural coverage to the buildings. Particle systems based on volume emission were used for many of the wider shots and where the flowers and leaves needed to look bushier.

When precise control was needed over the placement of vines, they were hand drawn in 3D and snapped onto the underlying surface of the building. That saved time and it helped to blend in some of the particle generated elements.

The directors, Josh and Jonathan Baker from TWiN, had a clear vision of exactly how far the vines and the flowers should grow on each shot. It made life a lot easier during the layout process as it minimised experimentation. Some of the shots were nudged or swapped around in the edit to support the narrative as the work progressed. Having this flexibility in the edit meant that the buildings could help with the composition of the plants and make it feel more natural.

The relative layout of the flowers and leaves was important. Generally, the flowers were used to accentuate the lit areas of the plate, while the leaves tended to be kept to the shade. Not only did it make sense that a plant would grow that way, but it also helped to get a better sense of depth and shape. It also meant that the orange colours could be kept bright and it avoided the potential for muddy browns. All of this can be seen to best effect in the 'Randy's Donut' shot in the 60 second version.

Despite the success of these techniques, the opening shots of the commercial go to prove that you can't beat an animator's sense of timing and composition. Those shots work really well and the level of control the animators have is way above what a simulation could ever offer!

Now see all of this in action and take a look at the finished commercial here...

Andy

PS: If you enjoyed this, you can also check out Andy's very own blog for more of his insights: http://www.andynicholas.com/