Question 1
jtclancy:
Tell us a little bit about your company 2advanced Studios. How it started, how long you have been in business etc.
Eric:
Today, 2Advanced Studios is a 27-person team; made up of graphic designers, motion designers, developers, and 3D artists. We began with 4 people in 1999, focusing solely on creating for the Web platform (ie: Flash web-design, HTML, and Backend Development).
In 1998, 2Advanced.com was just a small portfolio site that I had built using a very early version of Flash, but my ultimate dream was to shape the 2Advanced identity into something that represented more than just me sitting in my bedroom trying to push the envelope with Flash. I wanted to build a team of the best and the brightest web developers from all over the world, and become a significant force in helping shape the way people experience information on the Internet.
I believe one of the important factors that made this possible was a chapter I wrote for a book entitled “New Masters of Flash”, where I had my first opportunity to talk about what I do, why I do it, and how I do it. From there everything sort of erupted into this incredible roller coaster ride of recognition from all over the world. Suddenly, everyone was aware of us and what I was trying to do; shape the web into a more immersive, emotionally-interactive place.
At that point, project leads started pouring in for interactive work from all over the globe. I knew I could not take on the work alone, and I was dealing with some difficult career issues at the time that actually provided the catalyst for me to turn 2Advanced into an actual company. I left my position as Creative Director for an Orange-County based web design firm, and partnered with 2 very dear friends and colleagues, Tony Novak & John Carroll, to begin 2Advanced Studios, LLC.
We set out to use the best of our abilities to build something that would make a mark on the face of Internet history. It’s been about 6 years since we began the company, and in that timeframe we have developed solutions for some of the largest companies in the world, from Nintendo to Ford Motor Company, and built a team of some of the most amazingly talented designers and developers in the world. In the last 2 years, our services have expanded to include full-motion broadcast video and 3D production/animation. These new services now encompass a large percentage of our work load and have opened an entirely new door for us as a team.
A demo reel of our work can be seen here:
XD3 Demo Reel:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_xd3.htm
Question 2
jtclancy:
Your company is known to put out some amazing flash work. How much of the work is done in 3D?
Eric:
I would say that 85% of our work now involves some form of 3D production. It has become a huge part of what we do. From 3-dimensional interactive elements, to character animations, to CG effects, we rely on 3D for most everything we do now. It does not matter what medium we are dealing with, we almost always have some facet of 3D involved. We originally began developing 3D content using Erain’s Swift 3D, which allowed us to deploy 3D content in vector format very easily. Over time we began to need more powerful ways of developing 3D that allowed us more control over modeling, lighting and animation. This is where Cinema 4D came in.
We use Cinema to build everything from transition sequences, to navigation, to interface elements. A good example of putting Cinema 4D to use on a Flash website, is an interface we developed for DMI WorldWide, which makes use of something called the “RPC” plug-in by Archvision. RPC stands for Rich Photorealistic Content. Essentially, RPC projects high quality image and video content onto minimal polygonal geometry in order to simulate 3D. By synthesizing image data as the camera moves through the scene, images mimic the appearance of a 3-Dimensional object without relying on complex polygonal geometry. What this allows us to do, is animate a camera moving through a 3D environment, fill it with high quality video elements that interact within the scene (such as people or vehicles for instance), and then separate them at render time to control how we bring the elements into Flash.
In the case DMI, we rendered the surface of planet earth, with continents serving as the floor of the environment, and placed several sets of figures spaced out evenly through the scene. We then animated a camera flying over the continents, through crowds of silhouetted people, and finally resting to focus on one figure in particular, which transforms into a fully animated person in high quality video. From there, we exported the entire fly-through animation as a vector sequence and brought it into Macromedia Flash 8. We then exported the RPC character animation (whose position and orientation matched that of our camera perspective) as a separate sequence (Targa) using transparency. Then, utilizing the new On2 codec for Flash 8, we placed our RPC character animation in line with our vector animation. What we ended up with were 3D vector animations that load very quickly, and high quality video animation that matches our camera perspective to make the entire scene seamless.
Question 3
jtclancy:
How long have you been using Cinema 4D?
Eric:
We have been using Cinema 4D since 2003. Up until that time we had been entertaining the idea of using 3D Studio Max, and did employ some dedicated 3DSMax designers, but there were several factors that lead us to ultimately decide that we would use Cinema 4D for the lion-share of our 3D work. I was the first person on the team to embrace Cinema 4D. Being a motion graphics designer with a morbid fear of mathematics, complex GUIs, and a very limited understanding of fundamental geometry, I had never once considered trying to add 3D modeling/animation to my skill-set. However, one day, one of my partners approached me with an article highlighting the work of the infamous Riot-Manhattan broadcast design firm, which stated that they were using a product called “Cinema 4D”. Riot was doing much of the work that I wanted to be doing as well; high impact motion graphics pieces infused with 3D elements. Cinema 4D was very young at this point in time, but I wanted to investigate it and see what kind of power it had, and how easy it would be to pick up. I decided to let my fear of 3D go, and dive headfirst in a new product that would soon become the cornerstone of most of our work.
Question 4
jtclancy:
Do you or your company use any other 3D applications?
Eric:
We use Maya in a lot of our work as well. When we began expanding our 3D division, we were primarily looking for talent, not what software was being used. At first it was difficult integrating an entirely different 3D software package into our workflow, but we soon learned that passing files back and forth between Cinema 4D artists and Maya artists wasn’t as difficult as we expected it to be. The FBX format is a very friendly format that allowed us to transfer work back and forth to one another and still maintain the integrity of the work. Because Cinema 4D and Maya both support FBX import/export, we have had little trouble with migrating work from one software to another.
Question 5
jtclancy:
Do you prefer C4D over other 3D apps? If so why?
Eric:
Cinema 4D is so amazingly powerful, it easily rivals other packages like Maya and 3DSMax. It is a highly underestimated and underappreciated 3D application because it is relatively new in the market. But, make no mistake, we have turned out amazing work for commercials, video games, and website with C4D. One of the greatest aspects of Cinema is the user interface. Being a designer who has had a lot of experience designing GUIs, I know a good interface when I see one. There was a time when I would have never foreseen myself ever utilizing a serious 3D application. Cinema 4D has changed all that. The way the UI works is so straight forward. It is incredibly intuitive and logical. Also, to the amateur, it is so much less overwhelming than most 3D applications. It actually makes modeling and animating in 3D…well fun. I used to view this type of work as a monumental chore which could only be completed by a 3-Dimensional math wizard with a love for complex formulas. Today, I cannot imagine working without Cinema 4D. Its quick-launch icon sits right next to Flash and Photoshop in my taskbar, and gets just as much use as any software in my arsenal.
Additionally, the animation capabilities of Cinema 4D make it highly desirable for any motion designer. The timeline is built in such a way that it makes editing the motion curve of an element over time extremely easy and very customizable. I am highly critical of animation-based software and can say that C4D is both powerful and easy to use when it comes to this type of work.
Question 6
jtclancy:
I noticed on your site some news about a 007 - James Bond "From Russia With Love" project. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what you used Cinema 4D for on the Project?
Eric:
EA games approached us with an interesting challenge: create an opening credit video sequence using live action film combined with CG graphics for a retro James Bond game title called “007-From Russia With Love”. We began sketching some early concepts and eventually came up with a creative strategy. We wanted to utilize the outline of the Russian Landmass juxtaposed against CG hero shots of various vehicles from the game (ie: the Aston Martin, a Helicopter, and a Train). We had two teams working simultaneously on the CG. One team was headed by Baz Pringle, our Maya artist. The other, headed by myself, using Cinema 4D. We used Cinema 4D on most of the helicopter shots because the animation for those were so dynamic as far as camera angles are concerned, especially for the final seconds of the video where the camera does a 360 around some Russian architecture and follows the path of a missile fired from a helicopter. This shot was very difficult because the missile is moving so fast, but the audience still needs to understand what is happening, and not become disoriented by fast camera movements. Cinema 4D helped us pull it off easily. By using various stage objects to seamlessly transition between well placed cameras, we could use multiple focal lengths, aperture widths, and fields of view to complete the 360 degree animation without losing a sense of the physical surroundings.
Question 7
jtclancy:
I know you have used Max and Maya on projects. How do you compare the work flow in Cinema 4D compared to those 2 apps?
Eric:
Overall, Cinema 4D stands up very well against programs like 3DStudio Max & Maya, but I do think the modeling and display engine could be sped up. I do, however believe that Cinema’s renderer is slightly faster than the others. Also, the interface is much more comprehensible and less daunting, in addition to being easily customized. For someone like me who is still in the learning process of 3D design & animation, Cinema was an obvious choice for it’s ease of use.
Question 8
jtclancy:
Are there any changes or additions you would like to see in Cinema?
Eric:
The main change/improvement I would like to see, is better support for vector output. The current FlashEX renderer is very poor, when you compare it’s output results to programs such as Erain’s Swift 3D. 2Advanced Studios does a lot of work with 3D inside flash, and it would be so helpful if Cinema could output clean vector renders. My current workflow involves outputting a mesh from Cinema 4D, importing the mesh into Swift 3D 4.5, and then outputting the vector from there. It’s very tedious, and I would love to be able to output straight from Cinema. It would save me an immense amount of time.
Question 9
jtclancy:
Can you give us some tips on getting the best out of Cinema 4D and Flash?
Eric:
As I said above, try using Erain Swift 3D in conjunction with Cinema in order to achieve cleaner vector renders (until such time that the FlashEX renderer is improved). Also, take a look at the RPC plugin from Archvision (http://www.archvision.com). By using the RPC plugin within cinema 4D, you can output everything from animated people, cars, plants, etc and ultimately bring those sequences into virtual environments you design in Flash. Of course, you will need to use Flash 8, and the On2 VP6 Pro plugin for Sorenson Squeeze in order to be able to make use of transparency.
Another great use of Cinema and flash together, is to make use of the Sketch & Toon plugin. This will allow you to “vector sketch” your renders onto the screen, and finally transition into the actual full render. Of course you will need to get tricky with FlashEX in order to get everything to look good.
Question 10
jtclancy:
Can you tell us about your favorite project to date?
Eric:
Just last January we completed our first television commercial for a company called “Bioengineered Supplements & Nutrition”. They approached us to create a high-impact, 30-second broadcast spot to promote their N.O.-XPLODE pre-exercise supplement. Originally the entire commercial was going to be live action footage, however during the production process the client asked us if they could include a sequence where the product was being “mixed”, to show that the product needed to be prepared and wasn’t simply a ready-to-drink sports beverage. We were short on time, and didn’t have the opportunity to go back and shoot live footage for this, so I opted that we create the sequence using CG. This is where Cinema 4D came in on the project. I began to do research on particles in C4D and it seemed like something we could pull off in short order. We wrote expressions in Xpresso to control the liquid being mixed in a CG glass. Also, we used some basic particle emitters to “fly” the NO-Xplode powder into the glass as the camera panned down. It only took us a week to pull off, and it ended up looking great. You can read more about the project, and view the commercial here: http://www.2advanced.com/case_studies/BSN/
Question 11
jtclancy:
Your Cinema 4D and flash work is inspiring to us. Where does your inspiration come from?
Eric:
My inspiration comes from all sorts of sources; movies, books, architecture, but mainly it’s the energy I get from all the other talented people at 2Advanced Studios. When we start throwing ideas around and trying to solve design problems in creative ways, it can inspire you to try things out that you normally wouldn’t.
Question 12
jtclancy:
Can you offer any advice for a beginner in Cinema 4D?
Eric:
One important thing I have learned in my time as a Cinema 4D animator, is to “pre-visualize”. This is a technique I forced myself to use while working with EA Games on the 007: From Russia with Love project. Originally, I would spend all my time getting my models, textures, and lighting perfect and then go in an animate. Unfortunately, this is counterproductive because you don’t really understand how the general scene is going to work. If you know how the scene is going to work, and you can visualize everything that is going to happen, it makes it a lot easier to effectively light, texture, and detail your models. So pre-visualize! The animation department at EA Games calls it “Blocking”. Use the simplest models you can that still convey what the object is, then animate that. Once you get your camera and object movement done & approved, then you can move onto polishing the scene. It will save you an immense amount of time. I promise you.
Here is some samples of work from 2Advanced Studios that uses Cinema 4D:
Images:
Flash Based Sites that use Cinema 4D:
Jordan Architects, Inc.
http://www.jordanarchitects.com
Reelworld
http://www.reelworld.com
MAXFLI Blackmax
http://www.maxfli.com/blackmax/
Nintendo: Metroid Prime 2 Echoes
http://www.metroid.com/main.htm
Christopher Lawrence
http://www.christopherlawrence.com/
DMI Worldwide
http://www.dmiworldwide.com
Cinema 4D Video:
BSN NO-Xplode Commercial:
http://www.2advanced.com/case_studies/BSN/
iMemories DVD Bumper:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_imemories.htm
XD3 Demo Reel:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_xd3.htm
007 From Russia With Love Video Game (Opening Title):
http://www.2advanced.com/case_studies/007credits/
25 Milligrams Experimental Video:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_25mg.htm
Infinium Labs: Phantom Video:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_phantom.htm
Foundstone Corporate Video:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_foundstone.htm
Prophecy Reel:
http://www.2advanced.com/popup/popup_prophecy.htm
Thanks for taking the time to read this interview. Don' forget to visit www.2advanced.com to see more of the work that has come from this inspiring company.
Thank you Eric Jordan for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview!