The 3D secrets behind Channel 4's online-dating tortoise
MPC reveal how they brought Arthur the tortoise to life in this emotional ident to promote C4's Mating Season.
UK broadcaster Channel 4's recent season of programmes on modern dating needed an ident that conveyed the complexities of finding love in the 21st century. Using the character of Arthur the tortoise, MPC was commissioned to bring him to life and enable the audience to connect and sympathise with him, through his facial expressions and the emotions he portrays.
"MPC's main task was to replace the puppet head and bring Arthur the Galápagos tortoise to life through his expressions. Furthermore we replaced the legs and enhanced textures of the original puppet in some of the shots," explains CG supervisor Fabian Frank.
"It took about five weeks from shoot to final delivery, with a core team of two 3D artists, two 2D artists and two matte painters. A few more artists were involved during the initial build and concept stage.
"To generate an exact recreation of the puppet head in 3D was the biggest technical challenge. We scanned the puppet head, retopologised it and re-projected the details using ZBrush.
"It was quite impressive to see the puppet coming to life as soon as we applied the facial expressions and animations. We had to carry out a number of tests and study footage to get it right. Eventually we used an advanced facial rig in Maya to achieve the look we wanted.
"By using the vector displacement feature in mental ray, we were able to keep the poly count of the 3D model in our animation scenes very low, while still getting all the fine surface details in the final render.
"The most interesting and challenging part of the ident was the disco scene. This had massive light changes and lens flares, so we had to extract the light information from the HDRI and recreate an animated environment of the whole scene in 3D."
Liked this? Read these!
- Top free 3D models
- Best 3D movies of 2013
- Blender tutorials: ways to create cool effects
Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access
Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription
Join now for unlimited access
Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
Get the Creative Bloq Newsletter
Daily design news, reviews, how-tos and more, as picked by the editors.
The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Ecommerce Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Editor, Digital Art and 3D Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.
Related articles
- Designing the creative, cultural mix of New World: Aeternum's environments has meant its "developers have to be magicians"
- This simple yet effective billboard is a win for parkrun
- The challenges of being an indie dev, "About a third of the way through the game's development, I hated the damn thing"
- Maybelline’s new campaign is a refreshing take on mental health