Virus Empire

High definition CGI at micro level showing how different viruses get to work on the human body.

A new series of animations which take the viewer inside a human body suffering from the ravages of a viral attack. How the body puts up a defence that sometimes beats off the attack, or can end in death.

Animation Director Eduardo Schaal worked with lead animator Caio Montanari to create a 'look' for the animations that felt organic, while being clear enough to explain the sometimes complicated science behind viral attacks.

Maya was used to model, light texture the various microscopic 'actors' and the inside-the-body environments.

Technical highlights:

All shots - detailed concept sketches for colour, lighting and mood.
Camera work - hand held cameras with zoons and dramatic DOF
Particles - to generate thousands of virus and to add detail inside body liquid environment (blood, cytoplasm, etc)
Cloth simulation - to generate soft tissues animation for alveolis, cell structures like the denditric cells inside blood vessels

In all, over 10 minutes of animation was rendered and composited in high definition.

author: adc
2008-06-20