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SyFlex in Vodacom commercial "Conga Line"
Clip courtesy of AnimMate
What
TV Commercial
Who
Client: Vodacom
Agency: FCB
Director: Jeremy Goodall
Production Company: Suburban Films
Special Effects Studio: AnimMate
SyFlex simulation: Werner Botha
Where
Following the successful Vodacom Meerkat "Stripper" campaign, this latest
adventure of Maurice the Meerkat, produced by Johannesburg based AnimMate,
sees him playing pied piper to a jubilant crowd in Cape Town, South Africa, wearing a SyFlexed T-shirt! You can see the full commercial on AnimMate's website.
More
TD Werner Botha told us more about his experience working with SyFlex:
We used SyFlex in every shot you see the Meerkat -- his pants and shirt were SyFlexed.
The Director, Jeremy Goodhall of FCB South Africa, wanted the whole animation to be pushed to the next level from the previous spot. Utilizing clothing on the character was one of the additions we used to create a more believable performance. In fact, the clothes in that spot have become a great addition to the character. Because of the dynamics of SyFlex, the motion it derived from our motion captured data worked really well.
We chose to work with SyFlex because of the freedom it offers over the other solutions.
It really takes out some of the technical needles in cloth simulation. We especially liked how the cache system works on non-SyFlex licensed machines. It is very easy and practical, more so than other plugins with similar workflows.
The challenge was to meet the deadline, like always. One trick we used which really
helped was to pin the cloth in strategic places to help with the simulation and to help with the hectic motion of the motion capture. Because the shirt is open, without the pins it would go where I didn't want it to, but with the constrains it worked really well. Another technical issue was to create the right weight for the pants against the lightness of the shirt. We created a low-res stand-in character for the cloth to collide against.
We have used SyFlex in the past, for flags and uncovering products. In the near future
we will be using it in our growing content creation department.
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