NEWS AND EVENTS
Nick Angus explains how Alt.vfx helped break Japanese TV records with the creature FX it made for the Pepsi Strong Momotaro advert
Alt.fx’s latest record-breaking advert, plus more industry news
The latest installment of the Pepsi Strong Momotaro TV commercial has broken records for being the most awarded commercial series in Japanese history. The commercials, based on the popular Japanese folklore of Momotaro (Peach Boy) and his battle with Oni, feature visual effects provided by Alt.vfx and have become star-studded hits, with Jude Law starring in the latest episode.
“We have tried to bring feature film quality FX and character design to the series, and each episode has gotten bigger and more challenging,” says Alt.vfx’s executive producer Takeshi Takada.
VFX studio Alt.vfx has been tasked with bringing the giant creatures to life for the past two years. The latest episode sees the studio create a close-up of the lava monster the Oni, which required extra work. “We really raised the bar as we had never been this close to the character, so we included rigid body rockfall simulations and extremely high resolution smoke simulations,” says Alt.vfx’s head of VFX, Nick Angus. Nick also explains that new effects were needed for these shots: “For the first time, we added fluid simulations to the close up shot to eject lava from his hot core. These extremely detailed and high polygon character simulations are very complex but the level of detail is very rewarding.”
A new creature for this latest episode was the Orge, created and designed by director Kouichi Iguchi, and revised and sculpted into a life-like monster by Alt.vfx’s artists.
“The Ogre was always going to be chained up,” commented Angus. “So we needed to account for this in texturing, adding wounds and wearing in his skin layer. We studied the anatomy of animals and mutated and deformed it to make the original character in this special episode. The creature was then groomed with a fur layer and we had to figure out some new techniques to groom based on proximity of the fur to the chains that are tightly wrapped around him. The chains also needed to be simulated to hold the Ogre in place while he violently struggled against them.”
These extremely detailed and high polygon character simulations are very complex but very rewarding Nick Angus, head of VFX, Alt.vfx