The 2011 MINI Countryman, MINI’s first four-door and optional four-wheel drive vehicle, is introduced in high style and multiple times in this spot directed by Brian Beletic of Smuggler, with visual effects from SWAY Studio, for agency BSUR Amsterdam.
“Flow” opens with a quartet of stylish urbanites cruising in a red Countryman through Milan. Each obstacle and turn they encounter magically spawns a new Countryman, which splits from the pack until the entire city abounds with its red clones racing in an orchestrated adventure. The ensuing wave of Countryman vehicles traverses the countryside and coastline. The action culminates on a ferry at Lake Como where each vehicle, one by one, soars to the finish, seamlessly converging into the single MINI Countryman from which the spot began.
According to SWAY, all but 3 of the 317 vehicles seen in the spot are CG. SWAY utilized CAD data supplied by MINI along with reference photos to match the hero vehicle from the live-action shoot, surface for surface, detail for detail. For animation of all the driving sequences, SWAY employed its proprietary Drive-a-Tron(TM) software.
Crucial to director Beletic’s creative concept, the premise of SWAY’s job entailed fitting as many vehicles in the frame as possible, while exercising creative restraint to maintain a level of realism in terms of physics. The inherent challenge, from a VFX standpoint, was to make each unique vehicle look and feel realistic, particularly with the continuity of the vehicles separating and converging.
“The vehicles had to appear to be converging at will and not just crashing into each other. When you have 80 cars in a scene, it is about careful choreography, almost a dance between each of the cars. It was a tough balancing act, but we pulled it off,” said SWAY VFX supervisor Aaron Powell.
SWAY’s animation pipeline employed a range of other software: AutoDesk 3ds Max; V-Ray for rendering; Nuke and Flame for compositing; PTGui for HDRI reflection and lighting; and a variety of packages for tracking including SWAY’s proprietary tracking software, Nuke, and PFTrack.
According to Powell, Drive-a-Tron(TM) was by far the most important tool in SWAY’s pipeline:
“We wouldn’t have achieved the motion realism of all the bounces, slides and skids without it — much less in a production timeline typical of most commercial work. If there is any project we’ve done in last two years that really showcases the capabilities of Drive-a-Tron(TM), it’s this project.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More