Client: Fusion CI Labs - innovation project

Overview

Just a chameleon walkin’ here…. or IS it? We absolutely love the artistry of world-renowned Austrian body painter, Johannes Stoetter. When he agreed to collaborate with our innovation project – computer-generated, 3-dimensional transitions between his human sculpture designs – we were thrilled!
At that surprise moment when the human forms within each creature are revealed, our 3-dimensional abstract fluid flows transition from one creature to the next, adding a dimensionality, texture, and life.
At Fusion CIS we’re always exploring exciting new forms of creative digital art for the proliferation of LED screens everywhere! Rather than simply resorting to ads or stock footage scenics, we love to design something innovative, meaningful, inspiring for public spaces. Something that nestles into a space and makes its home there, yet wows us, igniting our imaginations.
Recently we were inspired by the notion of breathing life into static imagery, creating a magical, evolving art gallery where images morph and shape-shift, transitioning from one image to the next, growing organically from the art itself. As if the art has escaped the confines of the artist’s brush and is taking on a life of its own.

Goals

Our Creative Director, Lauren Millar, wanted to see each art piece transform back into its liquid paint form, gracefully flowing and mixing and swirling, ultimately flowing into the next image, completing the transition. And so a whole new era of visual effects development was born here!
Fusion's R&D team, led by Mark Stasiuk, were inspired to create these transitions with computer-generated fluid simulations using RealFlow and Fusion’s proprietary coding methodology. They used parts of the imagery as proxies for fluid properties. For example, gradients in luminescence were used as proxies for fluid pressure gradients that drive flow, and hues in the art imagery were used as proxies for fluid viscosity that resists flow (can you tell Mark has a PhD in Fluid Dynamics? : )

Process

Because each color in the art imagery has unique color properties, we programmed that color to behave like a fluid and interact, at its margins, with surrounding pools of color, forming complex, highly organic color flows evolving naturally from the original art piece.

Since this method is image-based, it naturally allows color-fluid "force fields" to be layered in just the way you composite images, and the flow forces can be controlled with compositing-like tools. For example, color-correction, like gamma adjustments, heightens motion. The potential controls and resulting motions are endless, so the R&D team came up with a wide palette of color flow styles, allowing Lauren to select and mix and achieve the right motions for the installation.

Additional Information

This is one very active area of research at Fusion. The latest exciting development allows this process to be interactive! Since the simulation methods rely dominantly on 2D image manipulations, they can be executed in real time and made interactive (triggered by human movement... or anything you want). There you have it! Easy peasy.