|
Customer Highlight: Pendulum Studios
(Nov. 24, 2003)
ROB TAYLOR, Executive Producer | President
MIKE McCORMICK, Director of 3D Animation
Pendulum Studios
, co-founded in January 2003 by Rob Taylor, executive producer and president,
and Mike McCormick, director of 3D animation, is a 3D animation studio
located in San Diego, Calif. The facility provides CGI and digital effects
for television series, commercials, music videos and some film and is also
involved in long-format and episodic property development. Among Pendulum's
better known projects include commercials for Nike, Coke, AT&T, and music
videos for U2, Tool, and Will Smith. wondertouch's particleIllusion is being
deployed as a critical particle effects solution by artists in Pendulum's 2D
and 3D production pipeline. Some of the company's work can be seen at
www.studiopendulum.com.
wondertouch caught up with Taylor and McCormick to find out more about the
facility and its use of the software.
Q: Can you tell us a little about your backgrounds and how Pendulum Studios came to be?
Rob Taylor: Mike and I both went to Georgia Tech and have been in
business together ever since. which has been over 10 years now. We have both
always loved animation, but feel extremely lucky to have experienced the 3D
industry from quite early on in its evolution. Our primary interests have
also evolved from 3D special effects to 3D animation. Our diverse
professional histories brought us opportunities to work on amazing projects
from Los Angeles to Cairo. The short version of our progression is that we
originally started taylor/mccormick in 1993 in Atlanta which was later bought
by Crawford Communications/DESIGNefx (where we ran their 3D department.)
Following this we co-founded Giant Studios, and then went on to freelance and
consult on projects all over the world. These collective entrepreneurial
experiences, coupled with a fantastic creative and production trial-by-fire
education, led us personally and professionally to adopt the goals that
Pendulum was founded upon - to create compelling storytelling with innovative
and entertaining animation.
Q: How long has Pendulum been using particleIllusion?
Mike McCormick: Pendulum is somewhat new to using particleIllusion but we
have used it during the past year successfully on two, soon-to-be three,
projects. We are a small studio using a variety of tools from - Maya to After
Effects - and are constantly mindful of increasing our efficiency,
productivity, and quality. Although cost-effective tools are not a thing for
which this industry is well known, we certainly keep our eyes peeled for
products like particleIllusion!
Q: What features were important to Pendulum when looking for
particle effects software? And, what made the studio decide to purchase p/I?
McCormick: Flexibility, speed, usability, learning-curve and quality of
output are all critical variables in a particle effects system - and quite
difficult to find. After we evaluated particleIllusion we found a combination
of all of these factors. All of this, coupled with its affordable price, made
our decision to purchase an easy one.
Q: Can you tell us about the projects at Pendulum where
particleIllusion has been used and comment briefly about a specific challenge
Pendulum faced where particleIllusion was most helpful?
Taylor: Pendulum is providing supplementary digital effects and animation
work for the WB television network series 'Smallville.' During the
production of a recent 'Smallville' episode, particleIllusion was used to
generate cool organic texture effects for a 3D shot. In this case the client
was looking for a very specific type of crystalline virus growth that spreads
across the surface of a live-action space-ship. Unfortunately, our schedule
did not permit much flexibility to experiment or develop custom methods to
produce this effect. Within hours of acquiring the beta of particleIllusion
3.0 - which wondertouch was generous enough to allow us to use - we had a
pretty firm grasp of how the program worked and how to achieve the effect we
wanted. By the end of the next evening, we had fully created the effect and
were able to present a nearly completed animation to our client, much to
their satisfaction and budgetary relief!
McCormick: We have also used particleIllusion to develop beautiful 2D
elements that were composited using After Effects for our own recently
completed animated Pendulum logo. Additionally, Pendulum is currently using
particleIllusion to create supplemental environmental effects such as smoke,
in an animated short that we are producing in-house called, Arrest Assured.
Q: Can you provide us with any other comments on particleIllusion
and what you think users might most benefit from using it?
McCormick: With its astounding flexibility and speed, particleIllusion
is among the very few software packages that are actually enjoyable to use
and yet immensely productive. We see particleIllusion not just as a tool, but
also as a creative toy that we can immerse ourselves in.
Taylor: While it has tons of great 'ready-to-use' preset effects and
templates, it's amazing how easy it is to customize, allowing us to explore
infinite creative solutions. particleIllusion allows us to create some very
unique and cool elements that we can use in the compositing phase of our
projects. It's probably one of the best bangs-for-the-buck we've found.
|  |
|
movies
emitter
samples
