Forest

A composite of live action footage in 3 layers and, 15 particle systems set to follow the users. The key task here was to allow particles to move behind as well as in front of some trees in order to create a realistic impression of taking a walk through the forest. As it was impossible to use only a single particle system to reliably handle attractors for up to 15 users and ensure that each person had an even amount of particles, I used 15 separate particle systems – each with its own set of force fields and collision objects (the trees, so particles would flow around them). As this introduced a lot of overhead, a custom point-sprite shader was developed to do the coloring and the time dependent scaling/transparency effects without the use of a costly point SOP. In order to create the impression that the particles emit light, a lightning layer was calculated with the help of long b/w feedback based trails that were heavily blurred.

Client: Deutsche Telekom AG
Concept and realization: q~bus Mediatektur GmbH