Syndicate Milo – just add water

Syndicate Milo – just add water

 Syndicate Entertainment AB – a VFX/moco facility based in Stockholm, Sweden – recently produced a promotional film for the release of Autodesk REVIT, a new architectural software. The production was driven from an animatic that was done in collaboration with the creative team from the agency. The challenge was to create a film that would show the workflow through the different program modules in REVIT in a way that would be appealing to architects, engineers and everyone else in the construction chain. The film was part of the internet release promotion of the REVIT program where water was set to be the main character as a symbol for the software’s dynamics and ease of use.

 Click here to see the pre-viz animatic

 Instead of using computer generated water the Syndicate team decided at an early stage to try to shoot real water pouring through small sets designed like the interface of the software. So when the animatic was made all 3D-models in the sketch film were scaled to desired size and then sent to a set designer who in turn used the 3D-models to print them in a 3D printer.
For Motion Control Syndicate used Mark Robert’s Milo Motion Control rig controlled using Syndicate’s proprietary 3dsmax Milo Plugin, that not only exports the camera moves from 3D to Flair but also controls all the axes of the rig. This is a great tool to use for scene to scene transfers, scaling shots, rig-flips etc.

For this project crucial things like narrow passages were easily detected at design-time and each set could be scaled to “fit the Milo”. One example of such a scene is the end scene with the dam. Built and scaled just big enough to let the Guiness head fit with just a few centimetres margin while still seamlessly fitting together with a long series of continuous moves at different scales.

Click here to see the finished commercial

Click here to see before/after post-production splitscreen