ZBrushCentral

Prehistoric Paraworld Comes to Life in Pendulum’s Newest Cinematic Trailer

San Diego, CA – 28 September 2006 Dropping the viewer into the midst of a chaotic and heated battle on a strange planet where man has command of dinosaurs and tribal warfare is part of daily life, San Diego based 3D animation studio, Pendulum, has delivered a visually riveting cinematic experience for German game developers Sunflowers/SEK. Taking place on a prehistoric battlefield populated by primitive barbarians, nimble footed assassins, and giant reptiles trained as war machines, the 60 second HD-resolution 3D cinematic introduces the new real-time strategy game, Paraworld. Pendulum was hired to both create and direct the fully 3D CGI production. The cinematic, which uses a single dynamic camera for the entire piece, is a rollercoaster ride through the game’s breathtaking and dangerous Jurassic environment.

Pendulum’s multi-disciplinary team of artists brought unique value to the table by lending its award winning expertise in CGI production as well as the experience and creative direction of the studio’s co-owners Rob Taylor and Mike McCormick. Sunflowers/SEK provided Pendulum with a wide range of existing designs and low-resolution 3D assets from the game development team, but the project’s high-resolution output (HD 720p) required a major evolution in the design and depth of the tribesmen, dinosaurs and environments. “The client’s only specific parameters were that we remain within the stylistic boundaries of the world they’d created for the game… but that world was so diverse and exciting that our creative team had far more artistic freedom than usual. So we essentially had the chance to create this entire amazing and barbaric environment from scratch, and then just dream up a slew of exhilarating battle scenarios,” explains the Pendulum’s Executive Producer, Rob Taylor. The result was a remarkable array of formidable dinosaurs, fearsome warriors, horrific weapons and battle-ravaged landscapes. With such a wide range of elements, Pendulum had to implement an efficient and powerful pipeline that would ultimately track the development, animation, rendering and compositing of over 750 layers.

To view the final cinematic, please visit: http://www.studiopendulum.com/toprecent.html

Relying upon Autodesk Maya, Pixologic ZBrush, and e-on Software’s Vue Infinite, Pendulum was able to give each character and environment the extraordinary level of depth and believability critical for the cinematic’s hi-res HD target. With research that included filming animals from the San Diego Zoo as well as various studio artists performing mock fight sequences, Pendulum’s rigging and animation team worked tirelessly to breathe life into the massive beasts and ferocious humans of Paraworld. In order to blend the huge number of elements and frenetic events into a single visually impactful sequence, the studio split the compositing efforts between Adobe After Effects and Apple’s Shake. The cinematic was given further depth and emotional intensity by composer Pierre Langer, of Dynamedion, who employed a full German symphony orchestra to bring his powerful musical score to life.

Pendulum Studios is the San Diego based 3D animation and digital fx studio specializing in high-end character animation and story-telling. Owned and operated by directors, Michael McCormick and Robert Taylor, the studio strives to produce the highest quality animation for commercials, game cinematics, film, and their ownanimated shorts. For more information about the studio, please visit www.studiopendulum.com.

Paraworld Credits:

Michael McCormick – Director, 3D Lead, Shading & Lighting Artist

Robert Taylor – Director, Executive Producer, Lead Compositor

Wade Ammon – Producer

Ron Chan – Storyboard & Design

Reed Casey – Lead Modeling & Texture Artist

Bryn Morrow – Modeling & Texture Artist

Gina Adamova – Modeling & Texture Artist

Scott Spencer – Modeling & Texture Artist

Ricardo Ariza – Modeling & Texture Artist

Stefan Minning – Shading & Lighting Artist, Software Development

Florian Wild – Shading & Lighting Artist

Mattias Jervill – Character TD

Matt Schiller – Character TD

Michael Hutchinson – Character TD, Software & Tools Development

Emil Bidiuc – Animator

Kevin Jackson – Animator

Paul Jewell – 3D FX Artist

Stev Kalinowski – 3D FX Artist

Scott Mitchell – Jr Compositor

Abe Cajudo – Editor, Digital Video Specialist

Yu Hsien Chen – Digital Video Assist

Josh Penix – IT & Sys Admin

Michael Converse – IT & Sys Admin

![PendulumPRWstills_02.jpg|650x365](upload://t7KqnoQJG7e0TKTyXZUj3kAEfiy.jpeg)![PendulumPRWstills_19.jpg|650x365](upload://54h9cfWoxF6YfXvS9fygdK66gvS.jpeg)![paraworld2.jpg|100x76](upload://rVNPloXR8OsVgoQ6Z9F4hXHaoVu.jpeg)

I think I had a small orgasm when i saw those movies lol :laughing:small_orange_diamond:+1:

amazing

Yeah these did give me a woody…

Freaking AMAZING!!!

Sooo cool!

G R E A T

Never been aroused by 3d before. Very good work though. Are there ninja dinosaurs in it? There was some ninja Prince of Persia guy in there. So if he had a ninja dinosaur I would have to play the game.

Wow…very cool. Gotta check to see when that title is finally available.

WOW!!! Wonderful job guys!!! I love the balance of realism and style. Very dynamic to say the least!!!

Amazing. The Mark Anthony movie is outstanding.

WOW!!! ‘picks jaw up off floor!’

Hello,

These are displacements/bumpmaps I created for some dinosaurs in Zbrush. The basemeshes I used were done by an artist in Maya.

![kentraZ2.jpg|1100x813](upload://wySZcs85gy6MvL1QxmsT5c288Zo.jpeg)![kentraZ1.jpg|800x650](upload://ApZgrVLfKkZVFy8sEkczNG9YGxA.jpeg)![brachZ1.jpg|1100x681](upload://y8psr9ZGq7Y5pK8DlDD4JC9Z2VS.jpeg)

Attachments

kentraZ2.jpg

brachZ1.jpg

I havent posted the zbrush render of the beserker, but here it is,
OK so he also has some hair in the cinematic, but it still had to be zbrushed in, and added to the bumbmaps.
The client wanted pretty stylized heads, and as you can see the beserker has quite a forehead, and really exagerated features.

oh and by the way the ear textures were bumped, so they look a little bare.
b

![beserk_side.jpg|841x789](upload://24qU9cSizNo91U4LwaxvsVPJgh3.jpeg)![beserk_3q.jpg|961x789](upload://fShOAGET9mO1Xx9VgaFWL8Xz4ly.jpeg)

i saw the story on cgsociety…really great~~

some kind of dream project for artist…very well done:lol:

Since we are sharing I will throw in some of my Paraworld stuff:) These were posted a while ago here

This rex was modeled by Ricardo in Maya, I only did the highres sculpting which dosent show thru this render too well since it predates the ADE :slight_smile: 16bit baybeee…ugh

That was a fun time with Ricardo modeling and ZBrushing those dinosaurs.
Its really nice to see them in the world now and fully rendered. I also spot some new dinos I don’t recall, good work on those as well.

My hat is of to you guys who really pulled the trailer together! It looks very nice.

ScottstegaSide.jpgstegaHead.jpgtricSide.jpgTrex.jpg

would love to play this game for sure

Top notch work guys, I love making dinos in zBrush. The more renders the merrier :slight_smile:

BTW, the video was amazing! Very inspiring!

I’m to lazy to check, but how will this game work, rpg style or rts?

Hell yeah … we need more dinosaurs !

i have a question though did you use sub surface scattering to do the renders, and did you use muscle systems on the dinos?!!