Laterooms.com – Bubbles
Beautiful little worlds for Ubik and Not to Scale
Undabo’s Doug Kennedy joined up with Ubik and the team at Not to Scale to help BMB and hotel booking website LateRooms.com create a beautiful 30 second spot where the holiday destinations of the world appear as drifting microcosmic scenes captured in bubbles.
Doug and Agnes were responsible for the stylised modelling of the CG elements based on the particular designs created by Ubik, and also animated many of the subtle details within the environments and the elaborate transitions between them.
The backgrounds were all live action and the director of photography filmed the path of the journey based on the initial previs created by Ubik.
Doug worked with the live action plates and the tracked camera data in 3d smoothing and balancing the motion, re-projecting the plates back on to 3d geometry to create a new stabilised version. This process also made sure we had a very tight 3d Camera that perfectly matched the new motion of the footage. He was then able to build most of the set in 3d projecting the footage back on textures, this made it possible to create realistic shadows and reflections on the CGI bubbles and also from the CGI elements onto the actual surfaces of the room. The 3d virtual set made it simple to accurately place the bubbles in the camera line, so we were able to experiment further with tucking background bubbles in odd places like under the kitchen table which hopefully added a subliminal layer of realism.
The deformation of the initial bubble that grows out from the calendar was hand animated to match the motion of the camera, and the effect was created with a series of lattices and animated nulls which could constrain and deform the simple shape. More complicated reveals such as the bubble that grows around the cottage were achieved by a basic pouring liquid simulation being booleaned from a shimmering bubble shape.
The piece stands out largely due to the beautiful lighting and rendering achieved by Anthony and Matt, each world was rendered and treated separately and composited back together to create the final effect.
Credits
Design And Direction : Ubik
DP : Tim Green
3D Technical Director : Matt Esterhuizen
3D Lighting : Anthony Martin
3D Modelling/Animation : Doug Kennedy and Agnes Billard
Flame Artist : Ruben Lluiza:Bernaldez
Colourist : Ben Rogers
Producer : Jade Caffoor
Production Manager : Kelly Ford
Agency : Bmb
Creatives : Laura Duffy And Joseph Koprowski
Agency Producer : Jonathan Chads
Music : Lucky Elephant (Through Hear No Evil)
Sound Design : Wave