SWAY studio recently added liveliness, detail and a touch of whimsy to the 2009 Toyota Corolla campaign entitled “Through the Roof” for Saatchi & Saatchi LA.  With their renowned image-based lighting and animation techniques, SWAY’s team of artists delivered over five minutes of moving live action, 2D matte painting and full 3D shots, contributing to multiple customized regional :30 second commercials as part of this modular-based national campaign.

SWAY : The client’s concept was “two live within two worlds:” To have the character of a miniature world, but also allow the car to feel full-scaled. The world that the client wanted to create was highly charismatic and bordered on the surreal.

I.A. - Did you use any techniques similar to the tilt-shift lens photography for the scenes outside the city? Can you give us more details about the technical aspects of the spot?

SWAY - In order to remain flexible with the depth of field, we tried to have everything shot with as little depth of field as possible. We tried to do as much of the shallow focus effect in post 2D so that it could be easily art-directed by the client.

I.A. - Can you tell us about the different elements of this spot? Did you work differently with the car than you did with the décor? How did you integrate all the elements in the final stage?

SWAY : The interior was shot in live action on blue screen and then the environment was comp-ed into the background.

I.A. - What software did you use for this spot?

SWAY Drive-A-Tron™ Driving Simulator, Assimilate’s SCRATCH, Autodesk’s 3ds Max, Autodesk’s Flame, The Chaos Group’s PDPlayer, The Chaos Group’s V-Ray, The Foundry’s Nuke

I.A. -Can you tell us more about your Drive-A-Tron technology?

SWAY - Sway's Drive-a-Tron™ software simulates the physics of cars in full 3D, taking into account not only the physical properties of the car body, but also the engine, drive train, suspension, and even the dynamic deformations of the tires riding over rough terrain. This all happens in real time, with the artist literally in the driver’s seat. The simulated motion and deformation is then imported into a 3D package for high-quality rendering. The result possesses all of the bumps and wobbles of a real car in motion, which would take a traditional animator days on end to reproduce convincingly, if ever. This means a director can exercise his vision in terms of what cars do, instead of what animators do. A ten-second shot takes ten seconds to simulate, so many takes can be done in a short amount of time.

The risks and costs of getting a crew out to shoot real cars are eliminated. At the same time, the guesswork and time cost associated with traditionally animating cars are also eliminated. SWAY is the only company, worldwide, using this cutting edge technique.

I.A - Did you use any particular techniques for the sequences where the vehicle literally aspirates different objects?

SWAY - The vortex effect (coming from the Corolla’s sun roof) was done using a great number of 3D elements from 3ds Max and V-Ray which were combined and manipulated and heavily treated in Nuke.

I.A. - How much time did you spend on this spot?

SWAY - The schedule of the project from shoot day to delivery was 10 weeks. We also had 2 weeks of pre-viz prior to that. In that time, we delivered over four minutes worth of material which was used to make multiple commercials airing across the nation.

I.A. - Which were the hardest parts to create?

SWAY - The hardest parts to create were probably the full CG shots. Several of our shots were entirely CG as it would have been impossible to get the physical camera that close to the miniature set. Therefore, we had to recreate part of the set, as well as set extensions to match the look and feel of the miniature set that easily cuts together. Additionally, keeping track of nearly 80 shots that were delivered - without an edit - was also a challenge.

I.A. -Where do you think SWAY contributed the most to this spot?

SWAY - The spot was interesting to work on because of the nature of its look and feel. SWAY completes many car commercials, but few have the look and feel of a commercial such “Through the Roof.” The Corolla can almost be seen as an actor in our scene, which made for some fun animation.

Links

Sway Studio : www.swaystudio.com