In 2004 Miles McCusker volunteered his time for a short film called Aerosol.  The film featured the antics of a little ant and a worker in a fly spray factory and was being shot on 35mm film.  The film required a number of computer-generated effects.  It was decided that real spray would be too difficult to light properly, so we had to come up with a computer-generated alternative.

After the first meeting with the director Wojciech Wawrzyniak, it was agreed that a few trial runs were needed.  Using test footage we would to see how effectively we could model fly-spray using 3D Studio Max.  The test was done using footage of somebody holding a can of fly-spray and pretending to spray, but not actually pressing the actuator.  Some more footage was taken and this time the actuator was really pressed and real spray came out.  Miles went about creating 3D fly-spray and composited it carefully over the footage with no fly-spray present.  The process was refined and when the director returned he agreed it was difficult to determine which was the real fly spray and which was the 3D spray.

Subsequently, work start on the actual film and we went about creating 3D fly spray for some 13 separate shots, including the title sequence.  Although, we were on a tight schedule all the fly-spray shots were successful, blending in well with the footage and not standing out as being CG effects. 

The thumbnail links to some images from the film.  We hope to put some footage from the film up here soon.  

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 10:26 am and is filed under Computer Graphics, 3D Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.