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Archive republication: This article was originally published in 2021. Product features, pricing, availability, company status, credits and links reflect the information available at that time.
ZDF Digital develops pioneering television and design products for national and international clients. They create immersive and interactive experiences and products for TV, web and social media for customers at home and abroad.
At their locations in Mainz and Berlin, they realise documentaries, TV magazines, TV shows, corporate and advertising films, transmedia productions, apps, e-books, interactive and broadcast designs, animations and visual effects.
Over 70 experts – developers, editors, concept designers, 3D, VR, motion, corporate and sound designers, performance managers, editors and subtitling specialists – work together on the projects. They have recently started using real-time creation and animation tools such as Character Creator and iClone in their network pipelines to speed up production and ensure quality at the same time.
“We now use Reallusion software on a daily basis for all kinds of high-end projects to achieve significantly more and better results at the same time.”
Q: Welcome Mario and Christian to the Reallusion Feature Stories. Please tell us a bit about your background, your team and your work at ZDF Digital.
Mario Hill
I am a Germany-based VFX and motion artist who is passionate about everything 3D and fluid simulation related. I have 10 years of experience in various industries such as automotive, food and advertising. Motion capturing has also been an integral part of my work for more than 4 years.
Christian Michelmann
Hi, I’m Christian, a 3D artist and motion designer based in Germany. I realise CGI and design projects in the fields of on-air & broadcast design, film & TV commercials. I am also the head of the motion design department at ZDF Digital.
Q: ZDF is a German public broadcaster that has created many successful TV programmes, including the recent series “Meine Wende – Unsere Einheit?”, which was produced by ZDF Digital. Please tell us what the purpose of this series was and in which episodes was the Reallusion software used? What other software did you use?
The project“Meine Wende – Unsere Einheit?“ started as a crowdsourcing podcast in which regular users could tell their personal stories and perspectives on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany 30 years ago. Using an online tool, anyone could submit their perspective on history, and 50 podcast episodes were created with personal stories from contemporary German witnesses from East and West Germany. The stories are poignant, sometimes funny and often sad.
At the end of the project, some of the podcast episodes were created by various animation artists and motion designers as an animated short film series for television and online. The idea was to give each story an individual, thematically appropriate look and style. Half of the films were produced in-house by ZDF Digital, the other half in collaboration with freelancers and artists to achieve greater stylistic diversity.
Our team used iClone and the Character Creator for the episodes: “Open your mouth”, “Look ahead” and “I have to get out of here”.
For the first episode, “Maul aufmachen“, we chose a simple style to get used to the workflow as we didn’t know how quickly we could finish the episode. We were also in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown and most of the team was working from home. Even the mocap shots with the Xsens suit simply took place from home and were then passed on to the other team members.
As we realised how quickly we were progressing, we tried to increase the quality of the look from episode to episode. iClone along with the mocap shots had taken enough work off our hands in terms of character creation and animation that we had enough time to invest in other parts of the project. Suddenly there was enough time left over to put even more attention to detail into the design and creation of the environment. This of course increased the quality of the animated films as a whole.
“Looking ahead”
Our pipeline always starts with the recording of the mocap data. At the same time, we developed the storyboard and the character concepts. With the Character Creator, we were able to quickly achieve the desired result and try out various character prototypes. We were also able to replace existing animations with subsequently modified characters with just a few clicks.
We then exported the characters and imported them into Cinema 4D, which we used to create the environment.
In C4D we created all the camera animations we needed for the final animation. This has the advantage that once the setting, environment and character animation are in the 3D software, we have countless possibilities for camera angles and settings.
Q: In recent years, ZDF Digital has continued to perfect character animation and motion capturing. How long does it take your team today to create a fully animatable character with Character Creator? What are the biggest advantages of using CC in your workflow?
When we first started using Reallusion software a few years ago, we were in the middle of a project that required character creation. We had our first experience with mocap data, where we had used small animations and bullet-time-like effects to get there quickly. Now we use the Reallusion software on a daily basis for all kinds of high-end projects to achieve significantly more and even better results at the same time.
“I have to get out of here”
“A variety of character types and concepts are created within a day and we can customise them to our liking with a few clicks of the mouse. The great thing about working with iClone and the Character Creator is that we can still change and adapt the character in an ongoing project and transfer the customised avatars directly into the existing animations with a single click. This means we are flexible and can react quickly to later adjustments or requests from the client.”
ZDF Digital – Germany
Many processes are simply taken over by the software. Processes that are not so much fun in the daily work as a 3D artist if you want a creative result quickly. Rigging, weighting, UV-ing. This is all done by the software and we can concentrate more on the creative side of the project and don’t have to worry so much about the technical stuff. Of course, this helps to increase the quality of the animation.
Q: In terms of motion capturing, ZDF Digital has adopted iClone’s Motion Live platform, which is also connected to the Xsens Inertial Body Suits and Manus Finger Tracking Gloves. How does streaming all the data into iClone save time, and what are the benefits of this platform?
With just a little equipment like a laptop with Reallusion software and the Mocap equipment, we are completely mobile and can go straight to the set, a studio or any other location.
We are no longer tied to the traditional optical mocap studios. We can see immediately on location how the characters behave and can react directly during the recording to possible problems with the animation.
The customer, and in particular the character actor, can also see what the actor will look like as a digital avatar. The actor can get more involved with their role and adapt their movements to the character’s characteristics.
Or vice versa: we can adapt the 3D avatar to the actor in order to take their natural movements into account. It’s also much easier to respond to the client’s or director’s wishes directly on set if everyone can see the result immediately and we don’t have to wait for post-production.
Q: In addition to “Meine Wende – Unsere Einheit?”, what other animation projects does ZDF Digital use real-time animation tools from Reallusion?
We are currently using many character animations for digital re-enactments. Historical characters are brought to life to retell contemporary scenes in a digital world rather than traditionally on set. In the normal TV programme, these are images that are not often seen there. Of course, virtual production is also a big topic for us, which we will integrate into our pipeline in the future.
Recently, we worked on a project for our client VODAFONE where cooking was presented through an augmented reality cooking app – Giga AR. In this project, the celebrity TV chef Steffen Henssler was created and animated using the Reallusion tools Character Creator and iClone .
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