“Food Shoot”
We were tasked by Counter Culture Lakeland to create a 6 second clip showcasing some of their foods. They had been having some difficulty achieving desired results with traditional photography, and due to kitchen logistics, simply making enough food for the shots was not cost effective; therefore, using CG for the shots was a practical and cost effective solution.
We used Side FX Houdini for all the animation in this project. Houdini provided a great platform for experimenting and trying out different approaches for each shot.
The cheesecake scene features both a rigidbody simulation for the falling cookies and a viscous FLIP solver for the dripping sauce.
The falling cheeses are driven with a simple Bullet RBD.
The tossed bread in the final shot is a Finite Elements sim. Part of the trick to making it look right was to actually reduce the scene’s gravity.
Rendering was straightforward. All compositing was done in-camera, and all scenes were lit using Redshift.
In the end, these tools and our experience with 3D rendering allowed us to create a high quality, carefully directed food “shoot” in a shorter timeframe and for less cost than traditional food photography could.
We are interested in exploring further potential CG can bring to the food industry