Honda Civic Type-R

Capturing the speed, power and cutting edge design of the new Type-R Civic, this electrifying teaser for Honda’s latest R-Type performance vehicle was produced through Kream for Karmarama and fully posted at Rushes.

Director Kirby McClure of Radical Friend sets the scene of a happy suburban family loading their car for vacation. The pleasant familial narrative is disrupted in a shattering transition to an ‘R-Rated’ apocalyptic city featuring demon-eyed wolves, samurais and super humans. Shot, animated and cut together with fearless technique, when it comes to performances, we don’t mind a little bit of danger.

VFX Supervisor Leo Weston oversaw a multitude of effects for the film, including neon lit set extensions of futuristic cityscapes, falling rain effects, exploding speed cameras, beauty work on female androids, plus adding their black android eyes, glowing wolf eyes, and bringing in the exploding CG crystal.

The rotating black crystal was sculpted in ZBrush and shattered into hundreds of fragments using Houdini’s procedural modelling capabilities. Although the crystal explosion was initially driven using a particle system, the need for creative control meant that the majority of the pieces ended up being hand animated.

Leo commented, “Lots of post and lots of late nights, all made massively fun by such a great team of people. So much love for my new Radical Friend Kirby, all the team from Karmarama and everyone else from Honda. One of my favourite jobs to work on ever.”

Rushes MGFX Studio handled the design and concept considerations involved in creating the dark and moody city that serve as the backdrop to the commercial. Setting the futuristic city visualisations with director Kirby, before tracking and compositing it onto previously shot buildings. In conjunction with this, MGFX Studio worked on the creation of various stylised animations, used as graphical projections that were captured in camera. Finally bespoke transitional effects using data mosh techniques were developed to help bolster the feel of this dystopian world.

Barry Corcoran comments, “From a design perspective, every man had his own task and knew what he had to achieve. I believe that all our hard work really shines through and shows in the creation of this city! We are extremely happy with the end result.”

Director Kirby McClure rounds up, “Rushes blew me away, Leo and the entire team were maniacal when it came to getting the details of the “Type-R” world right. They allowed me to practically live in their studio as we went through multiple CG tests and tweaks, I have much love for these guys and the work they create.”

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