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From Digit UK:
Source: http://www.digitmag.co.uk/features/index.cfm?FeatureID=1476The X factor
Monday 12 Jun 2006
US studio Hybrid has pushed the envelope with the truly interactive Web site for the movie X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
The creative goal was to make hardcore designers say wow the commercial goal was to blow away the fans and provide energy and excitement for the upcoming film, says Jeff Lin, Hybrid Studios president and creative director, of the aims behind the creation of one of the more graphically rich film sites to launch this year.
If the site is amazing, the publics perception of the film rises. If that happens, it normally translates to a big opening weekend.
Following on from historic work with Fox, the brief was fairly straightforward: top the last project. For art director Sevil Axiom, the challenge was to blow the user away, says Lin.
He wanted to stay away from the predictable electronic press kit site format, as its generic and theres no creativity involved. It usually entails carrying the design of the poster art and making some sort of Web site out of it.
The X-Men 3 site stands apart from this. Featuring full-screen 3D animation, wrapped up in a futurist, functioning Web browser, the site delivers great visuals.
Users can explore a mutant showcase that sports out-of-the-frame user-triggered animation, delve into a vast computer about all things mutant (featuring snappy 3D transitionals), as well as view trailers, cast, and production information.
Such a site demanded a high degree of work, with Hybrid starting development in August 2005 with a visit to the film set in Vancouver. The team also reviewed the production design and concept art, and then cranked up production.
We start with the design flats, reveals Lin, then move onto some motion tests with Adobe After Effects. Then, we try to translate that into a workable, reactive Adobe Flash piece and showcase it to the client.
As the months roll by, the scope of the work usually increases along with the ramp up in marketing. For this type of entertainment Web design, the good shops know how to stay flexible.
One perceived advantage of working with an established brand is access to supporting creative artwork and resources, but Lin reckons most people will be shocked at how little access there is in reality.
Most of the time, we get to read the script, see the early poster art, and thats it, says Lin. We ended up creating a lot of our own assets based on our interpretation of the X-Men universe, as well as cues from the previous movies and comic books.
With the site quickly progressing, focus turned to the development of a 3D intro to the site billed as a real crowd pleaser by Lin and something to get fans excited.
Lin worked on a storyboard click-through detailing the animation, with Hybrid art director Steven De Loenen taking up the reigns of the segment.
I needed to work with the limited content we had, and that was mainly flat shots of the characters that we Photoshopped and colour co-ordinated, De Loenen explains.
The main thing was presenting the characters, but not revealing too much. The fantastic 3D feature in Adobe After Effects made it possible to create a voyage through space past the characters and projected video.
To get the right dark and moody atmosphere, I spent a lot of time working the lighting and rhythm some lighting with shadows were used, as well as motion blur.
Because of the enhanced video integration of Flash 8, it was possible to make the whole intro in After Effects, render it as QuickTime, then import it into Flash, he adds.
One of the sites standout features is a mutant sidebar, where photoreal characters react to user input and again, Hybrid had to work with few initial assets.
What we did have was video of the actors on greenscreen, from which we isolated key motion scenes. The idea was to allow users to mouseover them and see the characters come to life, says Lin.
Hybrids art director Sevil Axiom then spent painstaking hours editing each mutant frameby- frame, with characters such as Angel being built from scratch from the trailer. For someone like Iceman, it was very straightforward, says Axiom.
Remove the greenscreen behind the character, correct the lighting, then we had several filters over each animation frame. One for skin colour, one for hair, and so on.
Dream project
The entire site is wrapped up in a 3D navigation scheme something the team created using Flash ActionScript, working with Ron Wisse of Visualdata. We wanted to create a 3D navigation that pulls you deeper into the structure with each click of a button. All the navigation, mouse movement, and zooming is achieved using ActionScript, making use of the Z-axis and simulating 3D movement.
Part of the sites make-up includes a futuristic X-Men browser skin for the site something that resonated with the client when Hybrid suggested it, according to Lin.
Doing a browser as a part of the design was something I had been thinking about for some time. Search functionality started small, but soon exploded into a major piece, says Lin
For the past two years, weve been pushing for sites to take on not just the X and Y axis, but the Z axis as well. Depth is huge in the creation of an online experience.
The browser works just like a real Web browser, yet the search function triggers an amazing fly-through of a 3D computer landscape, conveying the idea of searching through a massive database, Lin says.
The database was built using a content management system that tied together keywords and text, while the 3D transitions were created in Autodesk 3DS Max. Feedback for the site has been impressive, and that has reflected on fans perception of the movie a key part of the design brief.
We get praise from designers about the site, says Lin, and we tracked the fan feedback on chatboards. The reaction has been positive. The Internets superhero niche audience is somewhat jaded and hard to please even before they saw any photos or trailers, they had started to trash the upcoming film.
But, once the site launched, their opinions of the movie flipped 180-degrees because the site really impressed them, he adds. Our job is to create an amazing site that will help people give the association that if the Web site is amazing, therefore the movie will be amazing. We live for challenging projects such as this.
Matthew Bath
