The Last Airbender – VFX for viral video and game

Element Academy  – video

I recently completed work on another viral video animation project, this time for M. Night Shymalan’s take on the classic Avatar, the Last Airbender.

My role as VFX supervisor mainly meant I was creating FumeFX animations of subtle dust and particle effects.

With just under two weeks to work with  the director, Matt Golding of Rubberductions, showed me some ILM clips and said “make it like this!”

Elemental Master performing a demonstration

Generally my workflow consisted of using PFtrack to track the shot, or to simply eyeball it if the camera was locked off – I then created a Particle Flow system that worked the way I wanted and used the PF particles as a fuel source for Fume FX.

Although the shots are very subtle there is a lot going on – especially with bodies and items swooshing the smoke around.

[flv:http://www.jd3d.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/TLAB_Element_Academy_Viral.flv 608 320]

Vimeo link

Training Blast sequence

Element Academy – webcam game

I also produced VFX for a webcam game where the user must learn complex martial arts moves and demonstrate them in front on a camera – click here to play.