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This was a project I worked on at the start of the year, and was definitely a learning experience! I've worked with all of the elements that made up this project before, but putting them all together involved upping my game a LOT 
https://vimeo.com/351587446/dac2f96a20
The client had seen the now ubiquitous CGI dancers from things such as those by Method Studios and Kiyan Forootan and wanted 3 x 10 second CGI dancers along the lines of these, but with bespoke dance sequences set to specific music and most importantly, they had to loop. It was also important the the dancers all do something that would be 'impossible', hence the furry dancer coming apart. So, after a LOT of R&D, we decided to invest in a motion capture suit (https://www.xsens.com/products/xsens-mvn-animate), hired some dancers, a studio and choreographed some moves - needless to say, something I've never done before! The one exception is the dancer made from lights, as the style for this dance changed at the last minute and we basically ran out of time to find someone who could perform the dance moves, so this sequence is pieced together from stock mocap.
For the break dancing/mirror ball character, we found an insanely talented local break dancer, who is just 15. He was an absolute superstar and threw himself around for hours. Here's a clip of him doing his stuff
Here are some shots of the other dancer we used. Originally, her sequence was going to be more balletic, however it ended up being more R&B/Dance hall style (the furry character)
Technical stuff - the furry dancer was created using Ornatrix. As luck would have it, v6 was released just as this project started and the updated Moov physics is vastly superior to the previous Phsyx implementation. It took a lot of trial and error to find the best workflow (and I must say, it is not an intuitive system in its current form) but I'm really happy with how it turned out. Also, there's no way I would have got the fur looking so good without VrayNEXT's new fur shader. It's fantastic.
The mirror ball and light dancer were originally created using PFlow (with Kinematic Lab's Trajectory Mesher for the light trails), however tyFlow's beta came out as I was working on this and I was able to replicate the same setups in minutes and the performance difference was night and day. Obviously, you should never switch to an untested beta in the middle of production but tyFlow was actually *more* stable than PFlow and the speed increase was just insane. I owe Tyson a huge debt (literally, I am going to throw money straight at his face).
The 'caustics' from the mirror ball were a very last minute addition from the client, I really wanted to try and calculate these correctly but there just wasn't time. So in the end I scattered a load of standard spot lights of the base geometry of the dancer. I originally had the light dots blurring as the dancer moved, which I personally think worked well, but the client wanted them to remain as clearly defined 'dots'. All the glints and flares on the mirrors are from the frame buffer.
One of the most challenging things about this was having to learn Motionbuilder to edit and transfer the mocap into Max. The software that comes with the suit is pretty comprehensive and can export to BVH format, but this method is plagued with flipping joints, so I had to export as FBX, retarget and them import it back onto the BIP that way. I think Motionbuilder might be the least intuitive software I have ever encountered in 20 years of working in CG, but I was able to learn enough to get this done! Maybe one day I'll have the time to properly get my head around it.
Anyway, it was intense but fun!
https://vimeo.com/351587446/dac2f96a20
The client had seen the now ubiquitous CGI dancers from things such as those by Method Studios and Kiyan Forootan and wanted 3 x 10 second CGI dancers along the lines of these, but with bespoke dance sequences set to specific music and most importantly, they had to loop. It was also important the the dancers all do something that would be 'impossible', hence the furry dancer coming apart. So, after a LOT of R&D, we decided to invest in a motion capture suit (https://www.xsens.com/products/xsens-mvn-animate), hired some dancers, a studio and choreographed some moves - needless to say, something I've never done before! The one exception is the dancer made from lights, as the style for this dance changed at the last minute and we basically ran out of time to find someone who could perform the dance moves, so this sequence is pieced together from stock mocap.
For the break dancing/mirror ball character, we found an insanely talented local break dancer, who is just 15. He was an absolute superstar and threw himself around for hours. Here's a clip of him doing his stuff
Here are some shots of the other dancer we used. Originally, her sequence was going to be more balletic, however it ended up being more R&B/Dance hall style (the furry character)
Technical stuff - the furry dancer was created using Ornatrix. As luck would have it, v6 was released just as this project started and the updated Moov physics is vastly superior to the previous Phsyx implementation. It took a lot of trial and error to find the best workflow (and I must say, it is not an intuitive system in its current form) but I'm really happy with how it turned out. Also, there's no way I would have got the fur looking so good without VrayNEXT's new fur shader. It's fantastic.
The mirror ball and light dancer were originally created using PFlow (with Kinematic Lab's Trajectory Mesher for the light trails), however tyFlow's beta came out as I was working on this and I was able to replicate the same setups in minutes and the performance difference was night and day. Obviously, you should never switch to an untested beta in the middle of production but tyFlow was actually *more* stable than PFlow and the speed increase was just insane. I owe Tyson a huge debt (literally, I am going to throw money straight at his face).
The 'caustics' from the mirror ball were a very last minute addition from the client, I really wanted to try and calculate these correctly but there just wasn't time. So in the end I scattered a load of standard spot lights of the base geometry of the dancer. I originally had the light dots blurring as the dancer moved, which I personally think worked well, but the client wanted them to remain as clearly defined 'dots'. All the glints and flares on the mirrors are from the frame buffer.
One of the most challenging things about this was having to learn Motionbuilder to edit and transfer the mocap into Max. The software that comes with the suit is pretty comprehensive and can export to BVH format, but this method is plagued with flipping joints, so I had to export as FBX, retarget and them import it back onto the BIP that way. I think Motionbuilder might be the least intuitive software I have ever encountered in 20 years of working in CG, but I was able to learn enough to get this done! Maybe one day I'll have the time to properly get my head around it.
Anyway, it was intense but fun!
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