A dizzying mix of dramatic lighting, kinetic camera work, and procedural animation, Progress is the latest in-house CG experiment from Panoply and a “metaphor for progressing through failure and persevering to achieve our goals.”

Mark Lindner CD at Panolpy: “This film evolved through a few stages – initially it was a technical exercise where the animated position of the vase on the platform would procedurally move the robot legs to keep the vase at an angle that would balance correctly. Then we gave it some geometric structure by having the platform become a robotic character kind of like Luxo Jr, Pixar’s famous mascot.

“Switching out the ball for a vase with a flower added a level of delicacy and grace but it lacked tension or peril as the vase always stayed on top of the platform. By adding moments where the vase fell from the platform in a ghosted manner, it allowed us to show the paths taken to perfect the dance with the scars of the cumulative falls visualized by cracks appearing on the vase.
 

“This film evolved through a few stages – initially it was a simple technical exercise in figuring out the mechanics of balancing a ball on a platform.”

 
Andreas Catucci, CG artist: “To solve the challenge of balancing the sphere on the plane, we developed a system that continuously adjusted the plane’s orientation based on the ball’s movement. Once we had that working, we used the same logic to constrain the robotic arms, defining their orientation with vectors that pointed towards each joint. From those vectors, we built full orientation matrices to control the movement in a stable and predictable way.

“Another challenge was the procedural cracking system for the vase. We wanted the cracks to appear organically, responding to impact rather than just being pre-generated. To achieve this, we recursively shattered the vase and used a ghosted version that detected collisions. The cracks would then animate based on when and where those impacts occurred.

“We built the flower using an in-house tool, which gave us flexibility but also meant we had to figure out the best way to animate it. Instead of running a complex simulation on the high-res model, we created a simplified rig and simulated its motion using Vellum. The resulting movement was then transferred back to the high-res model, allowing for realistic yet efficient animation.”
 
 

 
Production: Panoply
Director: Panoply

Audio: Human Robot Soul