Case Studies
The Moment (by Baden-Württemberg Film Academy)
The Baden-Württemberg Film Academy was founded in 1991 as a non-profit limited liability company. Today, it is one of the most renowned international film schools. Here, we take a look at “The Moment,” a stunning short film created by a team of Filmakademie students. They ran up the beautiful RealFlow sims in just a couple of hours. Prepare to be impressed…
Next Limit: “What was RealFlow used on exactly?”
Baden-Württemberg Film Academy: “RealFlow was used for the tomato splashing on the windshield in slow motion. While the chunks and seeds of the tomato were hand-animated, the splashing jelly was simulated using RealFlow.”
NL: “Why did you decide to use RealFlow”
BWFA: “RealFlow is our main tool for simulating fluids here at Filmakademie and we already had experience working with it. We knew RealFlow was capable of handling much larger projects so we knew it wouldn’t have any problems of handling our little shot.”
NL: “What was the most challenging part of the project and how did you overcome that challenge?”
BWFA: “One challenge was that several different software packages were used. The shape animation of the tomato was done in XSI, the fluid animation was done in RealFlow, and final rendering was done in Maya. The export to RealFlow worked flawlessly with the plugins for XSI and for the export of the shape animation to Maya we used PointOven. Another challenge was the slow-motion look of the fluids. In the end we ran the simulation without any gravity and very slow emitter speeds.”
NL: “What kind of schedule were you?”
BWFA: “While the completion time of the whole project was 5 Months, the shape animation of the tomato was done in just a couple of days. The actual RealFlow part of the shot was done in a few hours – including scene setup and simulation. It was very fast.”
NL: “How long have you been using RealFlow? How easy/ difficult was it to integrate RealFlow in your workflow?”
BWFA: “I’ve been using RealFlow on quite a few projects over the last few years. The integration with the plugins is seamless and very quick. You just export your scene from the 3D Package and do the simulation in RealFlow. When you’re happy with the result you just export it to the 3D Software of choice. That’s it.”
NL: "How do you think RealFlow could be improved, or what would you like to see implemented into the program?"
BWFA: When you’re doing a lot of small projects, there are extended periods of time where you don’t have any use for RealFlow. When you open it again you want to pick it up as fast as possible. Some more Presets and Sample Scenes with meaningful descriptions would be nice for that matter. Another interesting area is GPU simulation. Simulations are never fast enough, so any speedup would be appreciated.
NL: "Could you please detail what other software programs you used and what hardware you used?"
BWFA: Maya 8.0, 3ds max 8, Softimage XSI 6, combustion 4.0, Adobe Premiere CS3. Hardware: HP Quad-Core Workstations with 4GB Ram.
NL: "How big was the team working on this video?"
BWFA: The core team was Csaba Letay and Verena Fels, who directed the film.
There were several students helping on special tasks, like the fluid simulation for example, which was done by Sascha Geddart (www.geddart.com) using RealFlow, or the Animation of the Tomato chunks done by Wolfram Kampffmeyer, or the particle simulation of the breaking window glass, done by Heiko Schneck. See all credits on our website.
NL: "Could you tell us a bit about Filmakademie?"
BWFA: To put it simply: we love Filmakademie. It gives us the framework to produce ambitious film and animation projects. We can create what is in our imagination, and learn from renowned teachers who actually work in the film industry all over the world and share their great experience with the students.
NL: "Do you plan to use RealFlow on any future projects?"
BWFA: Oh, we definitely will. It’s one of the best fluid simulations currently available, and wherever there’s blood to shed or tomatoes to splash, RealFlow will be the first tool we think of!
Credits:
Story: Verena Fels, Csaba Letay
Director: Verena Fels, Csaba Letay
Producer: Franziska Specht
Art Director: Verena Fels, Csaba Letay
Composer: Patrizio Deidda
Sound Design: Christian Heck
Lead Animator: Verena Fels
Animators: Csaba Letay,
Ilija Brunck,
Wolfram Kampffmeyer
Simulations
hair simulation: Hendrik Panz
particle simulation: Heiko Schneck
fluid simulation: Sascha Geddert
Texturing Horse: Ina Findeisen
Compositor: Csaba Letay
Research & Development: Verena Fels, Csaba Letay
System & Network: Csaba Letay
Production:
Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
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