A new focus: PFL creates 3D VFX shots for the modern remake Tales of the Riverbank.(Visual Effects)(Prime Focus London)

Tales of the Riverbank is a feature film remake, directed by Spitting Image's John Henderson, of the much-loved 1960s British television series. This time, its animal characters undergo a 21st century makeover through a combination of puppeteering and 5D animation, the latter of which was completed by postproduction company Prime Focus London.

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The film tells the story of three friends--Hammy Hamster, Roderick Rat, and GP the Guinea Pig--who, having been swept downriver in a violent storm, embark on an epic journey in search of their lost homes. The animals' adventures include encountering the evil Fat Cats and their WMD (waffle, marmalade, and doughnut) factory.

Prime Focus London created visual effects across 1500 shots. This work mainly entailed building 3D characters and environments, 2D compositing into bluescreen, and an end-to-end digital intermediate, which required a three-month conform and a 20-day grade. The project's immense scale gave Prime Focus London an opportunity to work with its India postproduction partners in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Parel, which was crucial to delivering the work on schedule and within a competitive budget.

The majority of the 2D work involved multiple rig and puppeteer removal on more than 1500 bluescreen shots. These keyed-out elements were then tracked with 2d3's Boujou and composited into real riverbank backgrounds using a combination of Autodesk's Smoke and Inferno, along with Eyeon's Digital Fusion. But each composite was complicated by the fact that characters had furry edges and often had to interact with water.

The modeling, says head of 5D John Harvey, was done in Autodesk's Maya and Softimage's XSI, and animation in XSI. Pixologic's Zbrush, Adobe's Photoshop, and XSI were used for texturing. The artists later rendered the 5D imagery using Mental Images' Mental Ray. Nearly 1200 shots were finished in India using Prime Focus London's pipeline. Indian producers in each of the region's four facilities regularly reported to London's main production department with shot status updates. Additionally, London VFX artist Ben Murray was stationed ...