June 11, 2010

Making Of 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series Ticket Spot

Click here to view the full spot.

Behind The Scenes Graphics – Indy Racing League “Paint” Ticket Spots
Working with the IZOD IndyCar Series, the IMSP graphics department concepted, designed, and created a 30-second television spot to promote ticket sales for IZOD IndyCar Series races around the world. Based on the concept, the spot consisted entirely of high-end 3D motion graphics, including the compositing of actual highly manipulated footage inside the virtual world. This project was an extreme challenge for us and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Concept
The concept was created through a series of brainstorming sessions and approach critiques. Out of concept process grew the idea of a single, archetypal IndyCar racing around a virtual environment. The IndyCar is driving so fast that its paint literally begins to peel and fly off to reveal a different paint scheme underneath (imagine a never ending paint scheme, one under another under another…etc.). The paint that peeled off the IndyCar flies through the air and impacts an invisible plane. The paint splatter reveals a stylized video of iconic moments in the IZOD IndyCar Series. Over the course of the spot we will highlight five different IndyCars and four different videos. At the end there is an information screen giving details on a specific race and how to obtain tickets to attend the event.

Pre-Production
During pre-production, we created detailed storyboards and a rough animatic to help guide our team and the client through the project. The storyboards went through several revisions throughout the project and were a great tool to help communicate this high-end concept. Once the storyboards were nailed down with a script and timing we could move on to an animatic. This animatic was a rough 3D animation that was timed exactly to the storyboards. It helped help convey all of the camera angles and car motions that were hard to visualize with storyboards alone. Once the storyboards and animatic were finalized we could move on to actual production.

Paint Simulation
One of the biggest challenges of this project was figuring out a way of creating a liquid effect for the paint to peel off of the IndyCar. Since the entire spot was to be created in 3D, it was essential for the paint to also be 3D. Countless hours were spent trying to figure out a pipeline to get a 2D paint scheme to fly off of a 3D car and splatter onto an invisible surface. To do this we used a combination of Maya’s particle system and RealFlow liquid meshing. We simulated each paint peel and throw using real-world physics and dynamics. We had to account for how the paint would interact with the car, the wind, gravity and many other factors that influence the look and feel of the animation. This process as a whole took the most amount of time to complete due to its complexity and detail.

Animation
Once the liquid simulation pipeline was in place, the scenes were then animated using a very detailed 3D model of an IndyCar and 2D textures of each IndyCar’s paint schemes. (A special thanks goes out to Michael Peters, who provided a 3D IndyCar model, as well as the various paint schemes used to texture the car). Since the only thing to really animate is the IndyCar, the animation was very straightforward. The important animation took place with the camera movements to help bring to life the speed of the car and the dynamics of the paint peel and fly. The animation, camera movements, and lighting were then all finalized and simulations were run based on the movements of the IndyCar. After all of that, it was just a matter of rendering.

The “Paint” Footage
For the video that plays in each paint splatter, actual video footage of drivers and cars was taken and manipulated using various filters to stylize it and make it look like the video itself was made of paint. Different elements of the videos were rotoscoped (cut out and separated) to enable advanced tweaking of these effects, as well as providing opportunities in some cases for custom backgrounds that further enhance the paint feel.

The Background
As the project evolved it was apparent that each scene needed more environment than originally planned. We decided to composite a unique background in each scene that helps bring out the spectacle that the IZOD IndyCar Series represents. These elements include fireworks, balloons, a jet flyover, skyscrapers, blimps, and of course, grandstands full of cheering crowds. Compositing these elements required matching camera angles, motion, and color elements of the animation.

Finished Product
All of these elements (animation, paint footage, and composited background) were then brought together with a closing logo animation for an IZOD IndyCar Series race, and then a paint-themed transition to reveal the IZOD IndyCar Series logo. The final touch to the spot involved custom sound design created specifically for the spot to really bring all of the graphics to life.

Conclusion/Thoughts
Overall, this project was a huge challenge for our graphics team and IMSP as a whole. We had to find creative solutions for many problems and aspects of the project as it evolved. But in the end, we created a piece that everyone was proud of and happy to be involved with, and most importantly, helped sell tickets!