A TIGER IN TRANSITION.(Product Information)

Animators give a cartoon icon a 3D makeover

It's not often that a highly recognizable tiger changes its stripes. So when modelers and animators at Smoke & Mirrors 3D in London were asked to turn Kellogg's Tony the Tiger into a 3D character, the transitioning task proved quite challenging.

For nearly half a decade, Tony has appeared on Frosted Flakes cereal boxes and has starred in countless commercials worldwide, often appearing as a children's sports coach, trying his "paw" at everything from football to wrestling. Yet his international fame has not come without problems. From Texas to Tokyo, Tony has suffered a lack of uniformity in advertising campaigns, as different regional cel artists attempted to replicate him--an issue that could be resolved through 3D technology.

"We were approached by J. Walter Thompson, Kellogg's [then-regional] advertising company, about the pros and cons of taking Tony from 2D to 3D" explains Andrew Howes, head of 3D at Smoke & Mirrors. "One of the major issues we spotted during our research was that Frosties commercials were made around the world, and Tony always looked slightly different in them, especially the shape of his head. This was also true for the package fronts. Sometimes the differences were quite extensive. Creating a 3D master model of Tony would ensure uniformity for the character, no matter how or where it was used."

Although creating the initial model and the first 3D commercial would be expensive, the cost eventually would be absorbed as the model was reused, notes Howes. Furthermore, creating an animation library of Tony's movements from subsequent projects would help defray the cost of future projects. "Tony has a lot of standard moves. So if someone in Spain would animate a basketball throw, that would go into the library for later use by someone making another commercial in France, for instance," he says. "The great thing about 3D is that the animation movement is independent of the camera moves and lip sync, so you can have a facial animation with a sound library and a body animation library, and both would be independent of each other"

While the ad agency was convinced that the transition would be effective, they had to also persuade Kellogg. At stake was a new look to a familiar face that would be featured in a series of James Bond/ Batman-style commercials. "We had to deliver an epic set of 3D-driven commercials as well as a unified digital kit of parts that would enable the new Tony tO have a completely homogenous look across all potential future media--TV, the Web, and games" says Howes.

Giving Tony Dimension