March 2011

The case of professor Victor Tytonius

A reconstruction based on various pieces of evidence

“Ah! Good morn… or… well, good whatever part of the day you are in, just ‘good day’, perhaps I should say. My name is professor Tytonius,… Victor Tytonius, to be exact.” With this awkward introduction, a scientist presents himself on the TV-screen at the DuPont’s ExpoProtection stand early November. His mission is to explore the differences between three common types of protective coveralls, one of which is DuPont’s Tyvek®, and to share his findings in a series of videos ‐ made by us. This is the reconstruction of the case of professor Victor Tytonius, based on seventeen pieces of evidence.

Exhibit 1: PowerPoint briefing

With a track record of some well-received 3D and motion graphics projects for DuPont, we were no strangers to each other when the marketing people from the Luxembourg plant contacted us for a new project proposal. They had given the case they wanted to build a lot of thought: a series of multifunctional videos about the Tyvek protective coverall. With scientific arguments, they would illustrate the differences between Tyvek coveralls and those made of two other materials ‐ differences that show why Tyvek offers better protection. The videos would have to be educational, animations scientifically correct, but the whole had to be easily digestible.

To avoid a dry sequence of scientific test and test result animations, we took to the idea of using the three coverall types as living protagonists. In our first suggestion these were origami-like figurines playfully supporting the content. We were gently led to new creative paths, however, as this might have fed the existing misapprehension that Tyvek is a type of paper. Our alternative took one step closer to reality again: we would use the three coveralls as humanoid figures, the test subjects in a lab where they are examined by a professor.

Exhibit 2: storyboard

We got the green light to elaborate this idea in scenarios for the first five in a series of videos. The coveralls would be the true protagonists, with the professor clumsily filming and commenting his experiments off-screen. He would only appear partly when adjusting the camera or going over to the coveralls.

We quickly outgrew that idea when discussing the visualization of the lab. We all agreed an advanced futuristic look would be just the thing to fit the DuPont image. There was also a practical reason for that choice: an everyday lab has a lot of stuff in it! As we were going to create the lab in 3DS Max, that would require endless modelling and time lost on details that didn’t really contribute to the story. After all, we weren’t making an animated film (though later on we felt like we were). The lab of the future would be clear of any clutter!

Now the clean futuristic lab no longer matched the home-movie-making professor… There was also the question whether the coveralls would have enough personality to carry the story, since there are limits to what you can achieve with three faceless and voiceless protagonists….

Exhibits 3 and 4: new storyboard and graphical try-out with stand-in

That’s when the “real” professor Tytonius was born: a man of flesh and blood, a wizard of science who would present his experiments in front of the camera instead of behind it. From a hesitant opening, he would gradually grow in his role as the “sciencecast” host. We gave him a huge lab for a playground, with a fancy “float-pad” to fly around on.

Exhibits 5 and 6: another stand-in and “a crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living” coverall

Next thing was to do some tests on how we would shape the coveralls. We developed a dummy model and made some basic animations as a proof of concept first.

In a later stage, especially the fine-tuning of the coverall textures took a lot of work. First we made photos of a colleague wearing it from every angle. It gave us a model of the material’s shape around the body, its flow and creases. Simulating this onto a realistic 3D result took many hours of modelling.

Exhibit 7: motion capturing view

Now that the coveralls looked realistic, we had to make them move realistically. We performed extensive tests with a motion capturing setup: three webcams at various angles film a person making moves against a white background. A software recognizes those moves and imposes them onto a 3D model. Though it wasn’t the gift of life by magic wand we had hoped for ‐ there was still quite a bit of manual retouching ‐ this process would allow us to animate the coveralls in an acceptable time span for the client.

In the process, three B·U·T team members got to practice their acting skills. Each of them had to convey the character of one coverall in convincing body language: Tyvek is fearless, while the alternative materials are hyperactive and over-anxious.

Exhibit 8: screen test

Contrary to the coveralls, our protagonist Victor Tytonius would have to be played by a professional actor. Our first choice proved to be spot-on: experienced American actor Vincent Eaton, living in Brussels, did a successful screen-test with various Tytonius interpretations, allowing DuPont to select the Tytonius closest to what they had in mind.

Exhibits 9 and 10: rotating plate and its try-out

With the scenarios and storyboards for three videos approved, the final preparations for the shooting could begin. We paid particular attention to how we would integrate the 2D professor in his 3D lab and have him interact with the coveralls. We had to be able to turn the professor without moving his feet whenever his float-pad made a turn. We found just the thing for that: a rotating support formerly used to put a CRT-monitor on proved to be strong enough. Primitively, but effectively, we turned it with an attached broomstick.

Exhibit 11: animatics

The animatics - a simplified mock-up of a scene with motion and sound - with a 3D dummy in the professor’s place were a great help in directing Tytonius’ gestures and body positions.

Whenever necessary to determine the position of our virtual coveralls in a scene, we displayed the animatics on the camera monitor, making it easier for Tytonius to talk or look in the right direction.

Exhibits 12 and 13: some textile glue and a blue ribbon

We bought Tytonius a plain white lab coat with a modern look to match his futuristic lab, yet it was still missing some “mojo”. With an acute lack of tailoring knowhow at B·U·T, this proved to be perhaps a bigger challenge than any conceptual or technical hurdle…

Though B·U·T realizes every project entirely in-house, we have to admit the inspiration came from outside here. During the “how was your day at work” conversation over supper, it turned out there was some thin blue ribbon stashed away somewhere in the attic. Thanks to some textile glue, we didn’t even have to put our fingers at risk stitching it on!

A Photoshop design was quickly ready and the ribbon and glue worked wonderfully well. Actually, the blue stripes we added to the lab coat inspired some final touches to the design of the lab, where blue neon lines became Tytonius’ brand.

Exhibit 14: night owl motion designers

This exhibit is a testimony to the hard work that went into animating the Victor Tytonius movies. It actually feels a bit disrespectful to our motion designers to spend such a small part of this article on work which took so many weeks: keying the footage, building the scenes in 3DS Max, integrating Tytonius and animating the coveralls, robot arms, virtual signs, etc…  in Adobe After Effects.

The team also spent many days on making the full-screen “educational” scenes that illustrate scientific tests, graphics, etc. There is less of a “genesis” story behind those, but they are at the heart of the messages conveyed in the movies.

Exhibit 15: soft drink

This exhibit is evidence to the fun we had sweating over this project. Our own brand of cola is just one of the many things we created from scratch to create a stage that would do justice to DuPont’s story of Tyvek.

Exhibits 16 and 17: escaped test subject and Tytonius floor sticker

Tytonius has evolved beyond his video “sciencecasts”. When the movies were first shown at the Paris trade fair ExpoProtection, DuPont had the stand builder include a separate space for Tytonius’ lab. An escaped test subject walked around the fair to attract attention. Floor stickers and other teasing marketing materials drew visitors into the lab area to look at the videos and compare the coverall materials for themselves.

In the end, Tytonius and his three test subjects have outgrown their medium. And we will see more of them, as we are currently working on two new episodes.