The Embassy used modo 301 for TERMINUS, a new short film by director Trevor Cawood. The visual effects team made extensive use of modo 301's new painting, texturing and UV unwrap tools to create CG characters that represent various urban installments and materials, including a concrete column character, an airport baggage turnstile character and an information kiosk character.
TERMINUS tells the story of a 1970s businessman who inadvertently offends a strange and ambiguous entity that accosts him on his way to work, and the man's rapid descent into madness following the encounter. modo was one of several 2D and 3D tools employed on TERMINUS, which can be viewed online at www.terminus-movie.com/terminus.html.
"modo has been an integral part of The Embassy's modeling pipeline for several years now, and we were eager to use it on TERMINUS," said Tristam Gieni, visual effects supervisor on the film. "We made extensive use of modo 301's new painting, UV unwrap and sculpting tools on this project -- they saved us significant time and allowed us to achieve excellent results without having to traverse several other software packages. Being able to sculpt right within the modo environment really simplified our workflow as well. We're also impressed with modo's OpenGL performance -- being able to paint texture maps and view our work in realtime was a tremendous asset."
The Embassy's Tristam Gieni was the visual effects supervisor, and The Embassy handled all visual effects and post-production on the film. Rainmaker Animation did MoCap.
Founded in 2002 in Vancouver, Canada, The Embassy Visual Effects Inc. (www.theembassyvfx.com) was formed by award-winning digital artists.
Based in San Mateo, Calif., Luxology LLC (www.modo3d.com) is an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software that enhances productivity via artist-friendly tools powered by a modern underlying architecture.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
