Animal Armageddon - Geocontrol2 in action

[MontanaJoe]

Howdy folks... just wanted to drop a line so that everyone can see some Geocontrol2 in action on television.

Animal Armageddon will begin airing on Animal Planet Thursday, February 12th at 9pm... here's a link to see the trailer. The show itself features some terrains generated in Geocontrol2.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/animal-armageddon/

The show was produced in Lightwave 3D 9.3, animated in Messiah, with some skys (particularly ones with cloud motion) and some scattered landscapes created in Vue. Vue was used more as the series went on since we were learning as we went though the main hero environments were still done in Lightwave using HD Instance for plant life. We also started adding in Geocontrol2 landscapes and expect to use more of them. The later episodes where terrain is featured more specifically will show these. If anyone can suggest settings for pillow lava fields, I'll definitely be needing to do some!

The team at RadicalFX (who also did Dogfights) are still working on the final five episodes of the 8 episode show.

If you're wanting to get a fix of various dinosaurs and other ancient habitats being destroyed by various calamities, this is your show. And if you just want to see Geocontrol2 being used in fun ways, we've got that for ya too. :)

Thanks for taking a look, feel free to spread the word and we all hope you enjoy the ride!

And Johannes: Thank you for making Geocontrol such a fantastic and wonderfully easy to use program!

Joe Lawson, VFX Team Leader, Radical FX www.radicalfx.com
and some personal work
www.fantasticuniverse.com and www.lawsondigital.com

[cajomi]

Hi Joe!

I am so glad. For the first time GeoControl2 is on TV. I am so happy because finally one of my wishes is come true.

many many thanks

Johannes


PS: The trailer is very impressive!!!

[dballesg]

Congratulations for the series Joe.

Glad you liked Geocontrol, another LW and Vue user here! :)

David

P.D: I suppose you are working with Larry and Jen? ;)

[MontanaJoe]

Johannes,

I'm both humbled and amazed that we're the first television show to use Geocontrol2... or at least that we know of.;) Expect that as we do more projects it WILL be part of my toolkit. Thanks for the great work and I look forward to seeing some of your future presets!

I'm doing my best to get the word out and hopefully you've picked up a couple of buyers from Radical. Most everyone who looks over my shoulder is amazed how easy and quick it is to generate stuff that used to take days and still not look as good.

You have software to be proud of and I truly look forward to it being picked up by more folks. And if God grants my desire to work on The Hobbit, then hopefully they'll be willing to use Geocontrol on The Lonely Mountain. :)

David: Yep, working with Jen though not so closely as she's really all about the prep and rigging of the characters. Her husband Dave and I are working on a project for National Geographic that makes use of MUCH more Geocontrol. I don't believe we have a Larry at Radical, he may have been before my time. But if there's a secret Larry among us, then, yeah, I'm working with him. ;)

And the LW/Vue/Geocontrol combo is pretty much unbeatable. I've now gotten getting Geocontrol into LW to a system which, when I've refined it a bit more, I'll post about.

Suffice to say there's some much better imagery coming. And God willing I'll be able to post some pictures here as the shows air. Honestly, though, when I look at some of the great gallery images here I realize how much further there is to go as an artist to get close to them. Time and budget are no friend of television rendering but I think we've gotten some good results anyway.

Thanks again, more fun stuff to come!

Joe

[Eagle66]

Hey,
i read in Lightwave Forum about GC² and this story, i think it is very useful software for terrains as addition to VUE.

Here is a Link to the another "making of" story for Animal Armageddon:
http://www.studiodaily.com/main//Plug-in-Post-Reviving-Dinosaursand-Ancient-Earthfor-Animal-Armageddon_10667.html

I hope CG² will advanced in the future..

-roland-

Ps: CG² ist ja wohl ne dt. Produktion...