Dvein - Visit / Portfolio Critique

Web Link - Dvein





Address - Carrer Almogavers, 56, 3 -4,
08018
Barcelona, Spain


Phone - 0034935285544


e-Mail - contact@dvein.com
reel@dvein.com
business@dvein.com
web@dvein.com




As part of the Barcelona trip in November, our Multimedia group went to visit Motion and Interactive design company Dvein. Before the trip to Barcelona, I took a look on the website and was excited to discover that they are heavily involved in 3D animations, which is the specialist area of multimedia that I like to explore. I also discovered they created the title sequence for Spiderman 3, which not only is a favourite film of mine, but shows how big this company really is.


Once we arrived at the company, my initial reaction was shock at how small scale it was. I imagined a large studio with a large team of staff, but as Teo explained in his presentation, they found it an easier process to work on projects with a small team and in there own environment. The room itself was how you could imagine a studio. Messy, computers all over the place, shelfs full of books, artistic models etc, but at the same time, the studio was limited to what it need, which gave it a modern, clean look.








The presentation itself was clear and well explained. They stood in front of us and just discussed there own work and projects, using a T.V. as a visual aid. They began with a showreel of work that can be found on this link -



Dvein 2007 Show Reel

This show reel really wet my appetite to see more of there work, it was so well put together, using samples of all their animations, quick edits, and heavily beat music, almost gets your heart racing and leaves you wanting more. From the show reel alone, Dvein really take great care on the detail and quality of the animations they create and the environments around them. My initial thoughts, which I was correct about, was that they do a lot of close up animation, which really brings out the pain staking detail. They also work with motion matching, combining live footage with 3D elements.


They first discussed the title sequence for the Spiderman 3 movie, which I was itching to learn more about -



Spiderman 3 Title Sequence

The process of this animation began with the pitching of ideas, to get the job. This meant creating storyboards, mock animations, rendered images a long process before the job was even theirs. The aim of the title sequence was the create a spiders web for the camera to travel along, whilst the web was being effected by the fluid like substance from the film. The web also contain video images, as well as a green screened Spiderman, swinging through this web made environment. By working with 3D, I could appreciate the difficulty in making this environment. To create the webs, 3D fluid artifacts had to be used to create the shapes, whilst painstaking texturing was used to make these fluids become threaded and web like. Teo didn't like the use of video footage in the animation as he felt it distracted from the animation. This is an example of the client having an influence on the creative output of a design. I don't agree with Teo though, I do believe the video footage is almost down graded by the environment in which it's contain because the animation is so detailed and rich and beautiful to watch.


This is another animation we were shown -



TOCA ME Design Conference 2008 opening titles

As a nod to how realistic there modeling is, the abstract shapes and fluid effects in this piece are not animations, they were the real deal. Although Dvein work closely with 3D, they will still step out of the box at times and experiment with other mediums. In this case, it involved melting objects with hot wax. The typography was developed first by sculptured models, then to be modeled in 3D.


Unfortunately I couldn't find any examples of these animations for my blog, but they can be found on the Dvein website, the idents for the National Geographic Channel -








The concept for these title sequences were to create an large and epic feel to the smallest of items, by using close ups to 3D models to fool the viewer. The idea is very simple, which made this one of my favourite parts of the presentation. I would have liked to seen more of these, part of the fun was trying to guess what they were.


The final part of the presentation was storyboards. Unlike normal, hand drawn storyboards, these were made up of mock up images made in 3D. The reason I enjoyed seeing these was because they looked like pieces of art as opposed to storyboards. For the competition brief I am doing for Design and Context, I am taking my idea to Storyboard level, it would be great if I was to make them look more then just rough sketches.







Teo was asked at the end of the presentation, whether or not we could send examples of our work to them, which they were happy to do for us. I was going to utilize this opportunity as I have a portfolio of 3D animations, and as 3D animation is a career I would like to get heavily involved in, feedback from these guys would be extremely useful. Here is the first email I sent to them -

From:	Adam Greenwood (adam_greenwood22@hotmail.com)
Sent:	02 December 2008 15:48:57
To:	contact@dvein.com

Hello

I recently came to visit you along with the Multimedia Design group from Stockport College.

I first want to say how much I enjoyed your presentation, I a real big fan of 3D animation, and the detail you create in your work is incredible.

I was hoping if I could send you some of my 3D designs you may be able to give me some feedback and advice on my work.

Thank you very much.

Adam Greenwood
3rd Year Student
BA(HONS) Design and Visual Arts - Multimedia Design
Stockport College




This is the response I had -

From:	Dvein (web@dvein.com)
Sent:	02 December 2008 16:07:00
To:	Adam Greenwood (adam_greenwood22@hotmail.com)

Hi Adam,
Of Course, send you work and we will try to give you some feedback.
Cheers,
Teo.


This is the response I sent -

From:	Adam Greenwood (adam_greenwood22@hotmail.com)
Sent:	02 December 2008 16:19:51
To:	web@dvein.com

Thank you very much, I very much appreciate this.

I'll collect it together and send it tomorrow.

Adam Greenwood


This is the email with the descriptions of the videos I sent along with -

From:	Adam Greenwood (adam_greenwood22@hotmail.com)
Sent:	09 December 2008 15:02:00
To:	Dvein (web@dvein.com)

Hi Teo,


Thanks again for offering to take a look at my portfolio. I am going to send my animations by separate email, but here are the descriptions of what you will see -

animation. mov

This was the first brief I had done using the program Maya. The brief was to model an object and packaging to promote aftershave, then create a simple animation. I chose to model a bottle of aftershave on a drinks Hip Flask for the purposes of a unique way of branding. The idea of the brief was to get us to learn the basics of modelling and animation in Maya, and it was this brief that awoke the passion of 3D design in me.

e4_ident. mov

This brief was about designing an ident for a T.V. channel. I decided to use E4 as the channel has an entertaining and fun theme, which I thought would be interesting to work with. I modeled the logo creating a solar eclipse to create an epic and powerful feel to the channel.

bungee_rendered. mov

This one is still a work in progress, but is the animation I am most proud of. The brief was to design and develop a character and to give it life via animation. I wanted to create a character that was unique and original, so I began by playing around listing objects, activities and emotions to see if I could create any interesting patterns. The idea I developed was sellotape being too afraid to bungee jump. I worked long and hard on creating the model for the characters and getting the textures to look real. The hardest part was to get the animation to make the sellotape look alive. I still need to work on the environment and sound effects to finish off this piece.

city_rhythm. mov

The brief for this project was to create a video edit and sound composition to show the rhythms of a city. Whilst most people used film, I wanted to explore 3D again, so I created a minimalist city landscape to support my sound composition. The sound composition was created by various sounds you would experience in a city, which worked with music which I hoped create a mood of the early morning rush, urban nightlife and the peace of sleep.

This is the response I had from Teo -

From:	Dvein (web@dvein.com)
Sent:	16 December 2008 15:13:28
To:	Adam Greenwood (adam_greenwood22@hotmail.com)

Hi Adam,

Sorry for reply late, busy week.

We've checked the animations.

I will give you feedback about the bungee_render, wich looks more finished. I think some of the comments will fit to the other test

In terms of render, lighting and materials and camera views, i have nothing to say, in general they are really well done. In terms of animation, i think you should try to give them more rhythm, i find them a little bit slow. What is really a common mistake in the first animations. As advice i would tell you to work in small test, with not lighting and textures until you find the perfect movement and after that start with the heavy renders. Also is cool to shoot objects in real to see their reactions and then imitate in 3d.

I hope this feedback can help you. Sorry if i can give you a detailed comments of each one, but we are in busy times.

Keep working!

Best,

Teo

Although brief, this feedback was very useful. To hear from a big 3D company that lighting, rendering and camera shots are successful is reassuring to my confidence in 3D work, which before I felt was too amateur to send to a company of this magnitude. I will also use the advice Teo has given me in future 3D projects, to focus on animation with more detail to create perfect rhythms and movements by experimenting more with real footage and using them as a guide.


This is the response I sent to Teo -

From:	Adam Greenwood (adam_greenwood22@hotmail.com)
Sent:	16 December 2008 17:30:07
To:	Dvein (web@dvein.com)

Thank you very much for taking the time to look at my work and sending me your response, your advise has been very helpful. I will take what you have said and focus more on perfecting the moments and times in my animations in my future projects.

Thanks again,

Adam Greenwood

3rd Year Student

BA(HONS) Design and Visual Arts - Multimedia Design

Stockport College