Vue for the Introduction Trailer from Paraworld

Pendulum Studios, a San Diego based 3D animation and effects studio, was comissioned to create the 1 minute fully-3D cinematic game trailer for Paraworld, a 3D real-time strategy (RTS) game by German game developers, Sunflowers/SEK. The Pendulum artists have worked on this project on and off for over a year.

About the project

The game Paraworld takes place in a pre-historic parallel-world; an Earth where humans and dinosaurs fight side-by-side against other tribes and factions.
For the trailer animation, Pendulum had to re-create this complete environment, based on the original material Sunflower/SEK provided. Pendulum's mission was to create the one-minute trailer that highlighted one of Sunflowers/SEK’s main objectives and selling points - the idea of real-time battle - emphasizing the game’s distinctive dinosaurs and chaotic battlefields.

The introduction of the trailer consist of a long camera shot that soars over a vast tropical/desert landscape eventually dropping to a ground level dinosaur tribe battle.

Construction of the scene in Vue

Michael McCormick, Director of Animation at Pendulum, shares with us a bit of how Pendulum have used Vue into production for the trailer.

For the introduction shot, they needed a highly detailed almost prehistorical environment to be entirely created in 3D.

Although their primary tool for the project was Autodesk's Maya, the studio investigated and tested Vue for this particular matter.
"It would have taken significantly longer to create and render such a detailed environment had we used traditional 3D methods, so Vue was a logical option worth investigating."

"I found that Vue could not only create the stunning imagery necessary for the production, but also quickly and painlessly import the camera animated in our 3D package."

The workflow they used was fairly simple. They created a previz landscape in Maya, and then animated the camera in there.

Using the Maya to Vue synchronization plugin, the camera path was then imported to Vue.
After this operation, they were able to create the landscape around the camera path, and eventually tweaked it as necessary.

Finally they renderered the shot at HD720p (1280*720) resolution using their own network of computers.

"We only have 44 processors available for rendering on this project, and the high-res HD render times for the HUGE number of layers being output from Maya were using most of our render-pipe.
Luckily, we were able to customize a lot the Vue render engine so that we could get 95% of the feel we wanted in a time that could easily match our deadlines!"

Final Composition

After setting up the landscape layout, Pendulum modeled the pteranodon dinosaurs, and animated and rendered them in Maya.
"I wish there were something more technical to share. It really was pretty straightforward for me to integrate Vue into the Maya pipeline. Since Vue can synchronize to Maya's camera, it was relatively easy to consolidate the workflow." adds Michael.

For the rest of the shot, Pendulum artists created the ground environment completely in Maya because of the complex character/environment interactions.
The hardest part was matching the visual look of the Maya battlefield to the Vue landscape.

"They're 2 totally different packages with different materials, textures, and renderers. We only used Vue in the beginning of the cinematic. Vue was a new breed of software for us when we began the production, so we couldn't risk a complete integration into the full cinematic."

The final composite was created in After Effects where all the layers were blended together and colour corrected.

About Pendulum

Pendulum is a San Diego based 3D animation studio striving to produce the highest quality animation for commercials, game cinematics, film, and their own animated shorts. Studio Owners/Creative Directors, Rob Taylor and Mike McCormick, wanted to build an environment where compelling storytelling and character-driven 3D animation could thrive, where creativity and innovation would be fostered, and where the artistic enthusiasm of its artists would fuel amazing visuals.

Why Michael McCormick from Pendulum likes Vue 5 Infinite:

"Vue made me feel better when I was sad. Wait, that's valium ;-).

Actually, it was gratifying to use a package that offered so much depth in its functionality, yet was simple enough to output beautiful imagery quickly!"

Check out Pendulum Studio's web pages and portfolio here.

You can also read a complete insight article about the entire Paraworld trailer project, as well as the HD resolution complete trailer at www.cgsociety.org

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