Shark - Superhighway

422's creature animation team create dramatic and scientifically accurate Hammerhead action

A commission by National Geographic TV and Film in Washington DC for a series of animations of the bizarre looking, 20 million year old hammerhead shark. The film, shot in the Galapagos, needed 422's animations to help explain how the shark's advanced sensory system works, and how these amazing creatures navigate great distances in vast numbers using sophisticated underwater mapping techniques.

422 was approached because of our specialist expertise in creature animation. 'The challenge was tough' explains Director of animation Rogerio Alves 'because the film itself is full of great-looking real shark footage, so our CGI sharks had to look and move in exactly the right way'.

One of the main tasks was to create a one minute opening sequence for the film which ends with a reveal of huge numbers of hammerheads swimming in a giant column (the 'superhighway' of the film's title). Fairly late in the brief it emerged that the animated hammerheads, followed by the CGI 'camera' would need to be shown swimming around and within coral reefs rather than in open water. 'We suddenly realised we'd need to build a real-looking reef in addition to the hammerheads and other background fish - a challenge given the usual tight budgets and deadlines of broadcast TV'

Alves's team used Maya to build, texture and animate the shark. The scene was lit rendered using Mental Ray. Compositing and finishing was achieved using Shake.

author: adc
2008-03-31