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Rhinoceros Brushes Up On Small Details For Colgate

This spotwill make you want to reach for the floss. New York-based RhinocerosVisual Effects & Design recently created a 15-second spot titled"Evolution" for client Colgate via agency Young & Rubicam. The spotpresents a CG portrayal of the new Active Angle toothbrush in action.Although the concept was straightforward, CG director David Barosinexplained that he and his team had to negotiate some pretty complexdetails. Because the toothbrush has a translucent quality, the lighthad to behave realistically between its bristles and the backgrounds.The task fell to lighting director Dave Lobser. "We actually brokethe toothbrush apart to see what surface properties were responsiblefor such an interesting play of light," said Lobser. "Getting theseelements to work together in a way that invoked the beauty of thesurface was difficult and involved six unique passes." The largenumber of bristles on the brush and the way they had to moveindependently was handled by Houdini artist Vincent Serritella."There were 50 groups of 40 bristles," Barosin explained. "So Vincenthad to wrangle 2,000 bristles in unique movements. It wasn'tsomething that could be done with a straightforward simulation." Inaddition to Houdini, the team used Softimage|XSI for motion,animation and camera work, and finished with Mental Ray for Maya.Other credits for Rhinoceros include producer Yvat Neev, digitalartist Ji-Hyun and Inferno artist Nicklaus Schlumpf.