Extreme animation.(broadcast)

When Ra Productions (Dunedin, New Zealand) was approached to create several minutes of computer graphics for Animal Planet's "The Most Extreme" series, its animators jumped at the opportunity. As a result of their efforts, the studio was duly rewarded this fall when its "The Most Extreme Jumpers" episode received a News and Documentary Emmy Award nomination in the Graphic and Artistic Design category. Moreover, a character animation script that one of the artists created for the project has since been developed into a commercial plug in that is receiving accolades from beta-testers.

"The Most Extreme," a 13-part series produced by NHNZ in association with Discovery Channel's Animal Planet, highlights outrageous behavior and physical abilities of various animal species. The episodes focus on the natural history and science that helped produce these "stars" of the wild, yet nearly 10 minutes of every show includes realistic CG and animation to help in the storytelling process.

In "Jumpers," which was the first episode, the team used computer graphics to illustrate the extreme jumping abilities of frogs, rabbits, and fleas. "We used the graphics to illustrate that which isn't possible through flint techniques," notes Philip Taylor, lead animator. "Most of the shows also use a digital human to demonstrate how a real person would perform a certain feat if he or she were the specified animal. For instance, if you were a flea. you could jump over two Empire Slate Buildings stacked on top of each other, all in a single bound."

Ra Productions not only designed "Jumpers," but also produced all the graphics. Nearly all the 3D animation involved characters--a man, woman, and child, in addition to seven different animals. Furthermore, all the models except for the 3D man were completed in two weeks by one person: Taylor

Taylor accomplished the modeling in Discreet's 3ds max. in most instances within a day for each character. The complex character rigging systems, he notes, had to accommodate a wide range of realistic walk, hop, lump, and run cycles for an equally diverse set of ...