Pracuj.pl Marian Halski

3D animation Fur Maya modeling motion capture redshift yeti #characteranimation #characterdesign

We are proud to present a new campaign for Pracuj.pl - the portal for job search. This is the first in the series
of meetings with funny and surprising representatives of the animal world. They symbolize various characters, behaviors and experiences as exemplary employees of the professional jungle in which certain laws of nature apply. It takes time and experience to learn how to move in this space and feel fulfilled, content and comfortable.

Together with Brasil Warsaw agency and our in-house director Paweł Krzemiński we created friendly but characterful animated heroes of Pracuj.pl. We generated a whole world for them - the mentioned jungle, in which they live and make the most important professional decisions.

CHARACTER DESIGN

Marian Halski - the sheep from Halskie, and his story of employment in Pracuj.pl. He’s determined and convinced about his skills. He finds a job in line with his expectations and competencies using the app.

Michał Dziekan was responsible for the concept design of Marian the sheep. At the concept stage, Marian's character was transforming - taking on various shapes, body builds, hair grades and finally, we decided that Marian will be a hunk :)

3D ASSET

Our sheep crew members models and rigs were created in Maya. Due to time constraints, we used Marian’s base mesh to create the rest of characters by changing their faces and figures with blend shapes.

GROOMING

Choosing the right amount, the density of wool and working on its uniformity meant that we had to work through several different procedural systems. We had to make a few tries to get the right white on the fur to balance the amount of reflection - GI bounces.

ANIMATION

Anthropomorphisation - giving human characteristics to animal characters is quite a common procedure in animation. It is used for a reason. Emotions handed down this way are very quickly recognized by the viewers, and the meaning is remembered.

The motion capture session served as a reference for the animator and the editor. Above all, for the director Paweł Krzemiński the main purpose of the MoCap session was to convey the reporter's nature of the camera movement. That is why we invited to cooperation an experienced operator – Kamil Płocki.

BACKGROUND CONCEPT DESIGN

Building the whole world in a stylized 3d animation allowed for putting in some humor and nuances, not visible at first glance. Take a closer look around! Thanks to Rafał Wojtunik for the concept design of the background.

LOOK DEVELOPMENT

The biggest challenge was probably with the night scenery - we had about 50 lights there. Redshift has handled it without any problems, achieving excellent rendering times for all layers - backgrounds, characters, and additional passes required by the compositing department. GPU rendering helped us a lot to iterate each shot every day to change lookDev arrangements and implement new concepts.