Shed uses Yeti to help tell IGA’s story

Shed in Montreal recently executed this beautiful spot for IGA, we spoke with Luc Girard about how Yeti helped their move from XSI to Maya while surpassing their expectations.

Peregrine Labs: Can you introduce us to the sequences on this production that use Yeti and your involvement?

Luc Girard: This is the 11th and latest ad of a series our studio created for a chain of grocers here in Québec. Yeti was used for all of the hair you see in the spot and I did the grooming and simulation setups for all of the hero characters as well as the extras. I enlisted the help of my colleague Marc Lebuis to help me get all of the nHair simulations completed when the final animation was ready.

PL: What was the catalyst for using Yeti on these sequences?

LG: Shed has been a Softimage shop up until a few months ago when Autodesk announced the death of this beautiful piece of software. At that point we decided to make the plunge and transition to Maya so this IGA spot was the first major production we did with Maya.

Hair is difficult to move from one software to another so I decided it would be best to shop around for a Maya hair solution and after testing a few solutions Yeti seemed the best route to take. To ensure continuity and be cost efficient, the client likes when we reuse some characters from previous spots (which were made in Softimage). Yeti gave me the opportunity to import the grooms previously made in Softimage as curves and use those as a solid basis for the grooming of the returning characters. That gave me more time to work on the original characters that were specifically designed for this spot.

And, just to make sure we stayed on our toes, the client gave us only 2 months for this production as opposed to the usual 3.

PL: Were you able to achieve all of your goals for the project and was Yeti able to accommodate all of your needs?

LG: I was able to achieve and surpass our goal which was to at least keep the hair quality level of the previous spots and many of our staff think that the hair in this spot is the best I have achieved so far. Yeti is a flexible hair solution that provides many means of achieving the same result. So if one route is not working so well for the styling you are aiming for, there is always other options to try.

PL: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us about your experience with Yeti?

LG: I like Yeti Central which is a valuable community where many answers can be found and it helps that Colin is very active on the forum so I don’t feel left alone to my own devices.

Thank you Luc! Watch the full spot below: