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Customer Highlight: Vincent MacTiernan, Extreme Digital Productions

(April 18, 2006)

Extreme Digital Productions Uses particleIllusion to Heat Things Up for HBO's Too Hot Not To Handle: A Global Warming Primer

Vincent MacTiernan, veteran animator and founder of New York's Extreme Digital Productions, recently contributed both his formidable effects-creation skills and wondertouch particleIllusion to Too Hot Not To Handle: A Global Warming Primer, a forward-looking, environmentally-themed documentary due to air this coming Earth Day, April 22, exclusively on HBO.

Executive Produced by environmental activist Laurie David in conjunction with HBO and New York-based Lovett Productions, Too Hot Not To Handle is a revealing documentary about the very immediate planetary effects of global warming. Not all gloom and doom, however, Too Hot also reveals positive actions taken by businesses, local governments and individual citizens to counter the growing threat.

Since the company opened its doors in 2001, particleIllusion has remained an Extreme Digital staple solution where its superior workflow, real-time rendering and library of pre-sets have been useful in creating animation and effects for clients ranging from ABC, ESPN, MTV and Comedy Central to the History Channel and the Weather Channel, .

Featuring in-depth descriptive discussions from some of the nation's top scientists, the Too Hot producers needed precise graphics and effects to emphasize their experts' descriptions of a host of global warming issues, including the "greenhouse effect" and the increasingly volatile weather patterns that result. In particular, the HBO producers wanted a fully-photorealistic view of the spinning earth.

For his part, MacTiernan admits to being in the right place at the right time:

"While I was working at the same facility as the producers of Too Hot, I noticed members of the HBO production staff reviewing graphic shots for a documentary on global warming. It was obvious the elements were not what they expected and they needed shots turned around right away. I offered to provide them with some sample atmospheric effects."

Using high-resolution image maps as a reference, MacTiernan was able to provide a 3D globe within a single day, winning the highly time-sensitive job in the process.

"The producers wanted a photorealistic view of the earth emitting toxic plumes of greenhouse gas, smog and other pollutants, as it spins on its axis," MacTiernan explains. "The big challenge involved smog and air pollution, and the producers wanted a realistic effect that they could tweak quickly and as needed. Time constraints ruled out using 3D particle rendering, which can take forever"

Using particleIllusion's built-in library of preset particle emitters, MacTiernan says he was able to accomplish in minutes what might have taken hours.



"particleIllusion includes some of the very best smoke presets any of us have ever seen," says MacTiernan. "With minimal changes to size and color, we customized the plume effects without resorting to a new 3D scene or, worse, starting over. In a very short period of time, we were ready to show our client real-time previews of the plumes at full resolution. They definitely appreciated being able to see and approve the look right away, without having to wait for a long render."

After using a combination Adobe After Effects and NewTek Lightwave to create a sophisticated 3D move on his photoreal model of the earth, MacTiernan used particleIllusion 3.0 to create and render his animations and effects showing everything from gas and smog to smoke and evaporating water:

"I rendered in single frames with alpha channels, then composited everything together using After Effects," he says. "I then used a warping tool to wrap my particle animation around the earth. Due to the timeline, I needed to render out an effect once, then motion track it to certain spots on the 3D globe. Thanks to particleIllusion, I was able to realize the producers' vision in a way I never thought possible. The project went incredibly smoothly and, in all honesty, I can say that particleIllusion's superior workflow saved me at least a week of work."

To stay abreast of upcoming projects at Extreme Digital Productions, please be sure to visit their website at extremedigitalpro.com