A very merry Christmas from Studio Giggle!
Animator Ed Vosper took on the task of creating Studio Giggle’s annual Christmas card. He talks us through the process.
“I’ve always marvelled at Rube Goldberg contraptions on the internet, one that forever sticks in my mind is the Honda advert. I wanted to make a CG version using dynamic simulations. I had the idea last Christmas but I thought it would be too challenging, so I kind of put the idea to bed. When asked to come up with a Christmas card this year I thought I would rise to the challenge and go for it.
With the help of fellow animator Iina Kuula, we sat down and researched Rube Goldberg machines online for ideas and inspiration. From this we sketched a sequence that we thought we could achieve.
I knew I wanted to use Cinema 4D as the software, as it has built in real world dynamic simulations, so I knew could create a chain reaction in 3D that would react in the way it would in real life. The simulations were rendered out and then composited in After Effects. This is where we dimmed the lights and made the light bulbs glow. It was all native software, and no plugins were needed.
From the start to the final render and sound design, the project took 5 days. The render took a massive 21 hours in total, and I had to do it twice due to a glitch in the first render!
Overall making Studio Giggle’s Christmas card was great fun. I had never tried to make anything like this before. The concept creation at the start was tricky but once we got the ball rolling it all seemed to fall into place. The most best part was watching all work seamlessly after running the simulation well over 100 times until we were happy with it. There were countless failed attempts where a ball would spin off course or the dominos wouldn’t fall correctly but this was all part of the fun and made it even more rewarding when it finally worked.
I’m happy with the way it turned out, it looks great and all worked. It was also nice to honour the man Rube Goldberg by creating something I hope he would have liked.”
If you would like to create a piece of 3D animation with us, please do get in touch by emailing jon@studiogiggle.co.uk or call 0117 972 0081
