One element that greatly added to the realism and believability of the Turducken was the placement and subsequent movement of the beast's feathers. To seamlessly integrate the creature into the background, it was important that the Turducken's feathers be able to flutter and react with the wind as it raced across the landscape. To ensure proper feather behavior, the team enlisted a plugin for Autodesk Softimage called mbFeathers and did a bit of R&D to test their control over the distribution and movement of the turducken's feathers.
The CG Team used this test as a diagnostic to ensure that the feathers would sway properly in any wind without intersecting with each other.
Once satisfied that the feathers would perform as desired, the team distributed the feathers onto the turducken model. Because the beast was a mixture of three different animals, it needed three types of feathers strategically placed throughout the body. Using the turducken's texture map as a weight map for the placement, disbursement of feathers along the turducken's body, there were areas on the animal that required solely turkey, duck or chicken feathers and other areas that required a combination of 2 or 3 of these to create a smooth transition from one type of feather to another.
Once fully cloaked, the Turducken boasted approximately 30,000 feathers of 8 different types (including turkey, duck, chicken and combinations thereof to account for the feathers in the 'transition' spots on the body). As the beast runs frantically across the landscape, the feathers flutter responding to both momentum and gravity. A time-intensive process, the simulation of the feather motion was tweaked, perfected and then baked for rendering efficiency.
The feathers on the Turducken's bum were treated differently than the body feathers because they didn't require the same type of simulation as the body feathers. These feathers were their own separate geometry and their movement was achieved through dynamic strand simulation using ICE.
To realistically recreate the movement of the Turducken's backside, the team first researched turkey locomotion to determine the kinetics of the feathers' response to the body's action. Then, in ICE, each strand (feather) was given a high stiffness and the feathers were subjected to a series of physics calculations to precisely simulate the rocking, swaying and fluttering of the bum feathers in response to the Turducken flailing wildly across the plain.
Putting all of the feather motion together yielded the following result:
Check back on Wednesday for more on the lighting and compositing of the mighty Turducken!
Once satisfied that the feathers would perform as desired, the team distributed the feathers onto the turducken model. Because the beast was a mixture of three different animals, it needed three types of feathers strategically placed throughout the body. Using the turducken's texture map as a weight map for the placement, disbursement of feathers along the turducken's body, there were areas on the animal that required solely turkey, duck or chicken feathers and other areas that required a combination of 2 or 3 of these to create a smooth transition from one type of feather to another.
Once fully cloaked, the Turducken boasted approximately 30,000 feathers of 8 different types (including turkey, duck, chicken and combinations thereof to account for the feathers in the 'transition' spots on the body). As the beast runs frantically across the landscape, the feathers flutter responding to both momentum and gravity. A time-intensive process, the simulation of the feather motion was tweaked, perfected and then baked for rendering efficiency.
The feathers on the Turducken's bum were treated differently than the body feathers because they didn't require the same type of simulation as the body feathers. These feathers were their own separate geometry and their movement was achieved through dynamic strand simulation using ICE.
To realistically recreate the movement of the Turducken's backside, the team first researched turkey locomotion to determine the kinetics of the feathers' response to the body's action. Then, in ICE, each strand (feather) was given a high stiffness and the feathers were subjected to a series of physics calculations to precisely simulate the rocking, swaying and fluttering of the bum feathers in response to the Turducken flailing wildly across the plain.
Putting all of the feather motion together yielded the following result:
Check back on Wednesday for more on the lighting and compositing of the mighty Turducken!
I saw this commercial last year and, with the holidays coming back around, I thought of it again. I did some looking on the Internet and found this blog. I just wanted to say, I love your turducken, it still makes me laugh in all the right ways and thank you for this behind-the-scenes look at making it.
ReplyDeleteJust throwing this comment on all the pages for your mighty turducken ;)