Find out how this ultra photorealistic film was pieced together using 3ds Max and V-Ray. Watch the animated short here too

The Accuracy of Time is a depiction of part of the process of building a watch, more specifically the ceramic crown. Created by art director Javi Martinez, the short was made as a case study for his upcoming CGI training roadshow TAOT2012.

The idea was to replicate a real advertisement and the entire production process behind it. The film will be used as part of the roadshow training to highlight some of specific challenges currently facing digital artists.

The project was created using a 3ds Max and V-Ray pipeline. “The decision to use this software was simply to make a technical demonstration of the many capabilities offered by the two working together,” explains Martinez.

3ds Max and V-Ray: an ideal combo

“3ds Max allowed us to develop the short very easily using the new MASSFX to perform physical dynamics and the ceramic particles and at the same time offered great performance in the modelling and animation of objects and cameras. The reason we chose V-Ray was the quality of representation of light, versatility, simplicity to recreate materials and the optimisation of production times.”

More-than-reasonable render times

Rather amazingly, The Accuracy of Time was created using only one workstation! It just goes to show what can be achieved if you’ve got the right amount of dedication: “The short includes the processing of raw materials [to create the watch], the material injection to obtain the piece itself, then it passes through the baking stage and ends with the exposure of the product with elegance and quality,” says Martinez. “But the whole film was in fact a very simple macro CG production playing with a basic geometric model, a virtual light and virtual camera. Given that the piece was produced using a single workstation, the render times were very manageable, ranging from five to 35 minutes per frame.”

Playing with the look

It wasn’t all plain sailing, however. Due to the style and close-up nature of the short, Martinez had to work out solutions in order to achieve the correct look. “The animation treatment and lens blurs were resolved by ZD channels and working on it in post,” Martinex explains. “The animation of the camera lens can easily change the meaning of a sequence so experimenting with this technique was very attractive to me.”

Overall, the short took Martinez approximately just under a year to complete from start to finish. “The 10-month production time was an amazing experience,” Martinez says. “But it led to a lot of sacrifice and [it was a] joy to finally get my work out to reach the community of artists in an industry which is so difficult and exquisite.”

Watch the new animation short:

Watch The Accuracy of Time making of video:

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