[POLYGONAL DESIGN] : Hello Guillaume Ruegg !
When did you started there to make use of Unfold3D Studio Edition ?
[GUILLAUME RUEGG] :We started to use Unfold3D in January 2006 when I arrived in the
environment surfacing. When I arrived in this department, my wish was to use
Unfold3D because the set was huge and built of complex mountains. If we had
to do it with an other tool than Unfold3D , It would have take forever
considering the quality expected. Quickly the team started to use this great
tool. It took them a couple of days to masterize the software.
[PD] : Would you explain to us in what way Unfold3D was specifically a help, in
making of Happy Feet such a nice production ?
[GR] : The wish of the director was simple, he wanted a movie with the environment
aspect as reality. For that we needed perfect UVs with no stretch, minimum of
cuts in the UV in order to paint the map easily and all had to be done in a
record time. Unfold3D offered us all those conditions, that was perfect..
[PD] : Do you think that Unfold3D could save a big amount of production time,
and how much ?
[GR] : This is easy to tell. When I arrived they gave me the UV job of the hub which is
the principal mountain of the emperor pinguin territory. It was already done
but they were not happy with their previous result, so they asked me to show them what
Unfold 3D was able to do. I gave them a perfect result in a couple of hours
where they had worked a couple of days for a non acceptable result. So in
the end, the UV creation with unfold 3D was a formality and then we could
spend all of our time in creation of map and shaders. How much time of
production we saved ?... It's difficult to say. I was not supervisor. The
only thing that I can say is that I finished my work in this departement one
month earlier than expected, and I was not the only one...
[PD] :
Have you got suggestions about improving efficiency of Unfold3D, or to
achieve a better user interface ?
[GR] : Yes I have!!! :) I have already spoke a lot with Rémi
who I want to thank personnally. He had helped us every time we
asked for. He was great each time and it was taking less than a couple of
days to get fixed. On my opinion, the priority for unfold is to have
better results with angular objects, like mechanical ones. For this kind of
objects we must do a lot of cuts to achieve a good result. It will be nice to
add a function which would give us the opportunity to keep some area without
deformation and then less cut (though it would of course do some deformation in the
other areas) . I think that today Unfold3D offers perfect results in the
majority of cases. It only depends on how you use it. We have been thinking about
other new functions with Rémi but, I guess it's better to keep them
secret for now :) .