Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Floods, Fish and a Flooded Valley

27/03/2014

Austrian satire is often mordant and exaggerated. The Austrian town of Bad Fucking, pronounced fooking', takes it to the extreme and CINEMA 4D helped create the effects for this film in truly Austrian satirical manner.

Flash is required! --

It's a fact that words that have a specific meaning in one language can have a different meaning in another. Hence, a multi-language term can have a very respectable meaning in its language of origin but can be of quite objectionable nature in another language. The Austrian author Kurt Palm took advantage of the fact that an Austrian town carried the name Fucking, whose status he then elevated to that of a spa town and renaming it Bad' Fucking (Bad is the German prefix for spa) and relocating it to the Alps for his story. He then wrote an outrageous whodunit that satirically pokes fun at the Austrian character. The result was brutally mordant Alpine satire!

The book went on to become a great success and it didn't take long until the decision was made to turn it into a movie. The seasoned director Harald Sicheritz, known for his work in both film and television, was selected to make the movie. Since the story included several fairly spectacular scenes, which could never have been realized using live footage, the Vienna-based computer graphics and animation specialists Cybertime were brought on board.

The road that leads to the tourist town of Bad Fucking winds along the edge of a narrow valley. At the very beginning of the movie, a huge avalanche blocks the road and makes in impassable. The avalanche, made up of boulders, mud and debris, crashes through the valley and flattens a car on its way. The team at Cybertime created this scene with the help of CINEMA 4D. It was particularly important to be able to control the avalanche's path, explains VFX artist, supervisor and producer G nther Nikodim. The Dynamics feature's follow position settings were extremely helpful. They made it possible for us to use simple keyframe animation to define the avalanche's path relatively precisely; the motion of individual elements was controlled using dynamics.

Flash is required! --

The simulation was then baked and converted to keyframes. The keyframes were then reduced and Alembic was used to export them to Realflow 2013 where the large boulders were used as collider objects for the fluids simulation. The meshes created in Realfow, which contained up to 25 million polygons, were then rendered in CINEMA 4D together with the boulders and all the debris in the avalanche using the Physical Renderer in CINEMA 4D. Final compositing was done in Nuke.

The rest of the movie is no less spectacular: At one point, a police officer is swept away by a tidal wave several meters high that's teaming with hundreds of eels. The eels were created entirely in CINEMA 4D using the integrated Sculpt feature in addition to other modeling tools. A simple rig was then created using Deformer objects and MoGraph was used to duplicate a total of about 3,000 eels. The water was simulated using Realflow via Hybrido2 and was imported into CINEMA 4D as a baked mesh. We first experimented with transparencies and absorption for the water's shading, which unfortunately resulted in extremely long render times, stated G nter Nikodim. In the end we omitted transparency entirely and instead used Subsurface Scattering with a long Path length. To our surprise we were able to use this method to quickly create the muddy water we needed and in the desired quality. In addition, reflections were rendered separately as Multi-Passes and then combined with SSS shading in Nuke. Realflow was used to create Splash&Foam particles, which were then rendered in CINEMA 4D.

In the end, the tidal wave leads to the closing scene in which the entire flooded valley of Bad Fucking can be seen. This live footage was edited extensively in post-production: mountains were removed and the slightly overcast sky was replaced by dark storm clouds. Color correction was used to make the scene even more sinister and foreboding. Most of this editing was done in Nuke and Photoshop. The edited material was then projected onto rough geometry in CINEMA 4D using the Camera Projection feature so that careful camera movements could be created to enhance the scene's three-dimensionality even more.

Flash is required! --

A CG water surface was then created in CINEMA 4D that consisted of a simple plane with a bump map and a highly reflective material. The unique challenge presented by this shot was the seamless integration of live footage of a swimmer in a lake into the CG water. The waves created by the swimmer in the live footage continued outside of the picture and therefore had to be supplemented digitally. CINEMA 4D's Formula deformer proved to be a fast and easy to control solution.

Cybertime's team of 3 artists completed the main scenes and innumerable smaller corrections and additions within only five months. A total of about 7 minutes of CGI scenes were created and rendered, which made it possible to add the desired exaggerated satirical components from the story line - which are surely a matter of taste. After all, satire is designed to provoke a debate with regard to its content. There's no question about the quality of the CGI effects on the other hand - they're excellent!

Movie website:

http://badfucking.at/#
LINK: http://www.maxon.net/en/news/singleview-default/article/floods-fish-an...
See more stories from maxon

Most recent headlines

19/12/2025

Nielsen and XR Announce Platform Integration to Make it Easier for Brands and Agencies to Deliver Ads Powered by Nielsen Measurement

Partnership brings Nielsen ONE measurement activation directly into XR's adv...

19/12/2025

Motion Impossible Initiates Campaign for SMPTE Robotics Standard

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

Gracenote Unveils New Features for Sports Hubs

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

Berklee Announces Spring 2026 Signature Series

Berklee Announces Spring 2026 Signature Series This season's highlights include the Gospel Extravaganza, the 40th International Folk Festival, special gue...

19/12/2025

Queensland Performing Arts Centre Elevates Live Stream Ex...

Performing arts centres across the globe have doubled down on live production infrastructure in recent years. For venues like the Queensland Performing Arts Cen...

19/12/2025

FCC's Brendan Carr Stands Up for His Policies at Senate Hearing

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

Nexstar Brand Studio Launches with 'My American Story Campaign'

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

Nashville To Host 2026 AES Show

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

NAB Launches Effort to Keep Live Sports on Broadcast Channels

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

FCC Votes to Adopt New Rules for LPTV Stations

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

Hearst Television Ups Mike Kronenfeld to VP, National Sales

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

19/12/2025

Ricardo Coke-Thomas Named Chair of Theater for Boston Conservatory at Berklee

Ricardo Coke-Thomas Named Chair of Theater for Boston Conservatory at Berklee The distinguished theater educator, director, and performer will join the Conser...

19/12/2025

RT is turning up the volume at the 2026 Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition

RT is proud to return to the RDS to support the 2026 Stripe Young Scientist & T...

19/12/2025

December 18, 2025

Nanoparticle vaccine strategy could protect against Ebola and other deadly filoviruses Scripps Research scientists turn nanoparticles into virus showcases to ...

18/12/2025

SVG Campus Shot Callers: Kurt Sutton, Director of Broadcast Operations, Clemson University

SVG Campus Shot Callers: Kurt Sutton, Director of Broadcast Operations, Clemson ...

18/12/2025

Follow the Money Episode 2: Inside the Sports Media Biz with Sam McCleery and Steve Hellmuth

Follow the Money Episode 2: Inside the Sports Media Biz with Sam McCleery and St...

18/12/2025

SVG Sit-Down: Google Cloud's Anshul Kapoor on the Future of Generative Production' in Live Sports

SVG Sit-Down: Google Cloud's Anshul Kapoor on the Future of Generative Prod...

18/12/2025

The 2025 SVG Summit Draws Record Crowd for 20th-Annual Sports-Production Industry Homecoming in NYC

The 2025 SVG Summit Draws Record Crowd for 20th-Annual Sports-Production Industr...

18/12/2025

SBS's sports schedule sizzles in January with Dakar Rally, Kooyong Classic and Mapei Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race

SBS's sports schedule sizzles in January with Dakar Rally, Kooyong Classic a...

18/12/2025

Montreal's Bell Centre elevates fan experience with Argo S

Canada's largest indoor arena has transformed its live production capabilities with a full ST 2110 infrastructure and Calrec's compact Argo S console. S...

18/12/2025

The Gauge: Mexico November 2025

During November, streaming's share of TV viewing in Mexico settled at 24.2%, an increase of 0.5 share points from the previous month. Disclaimer: YUMI TV,...

18/12/2025

The Gauge: Poland | November 2025

November continued the upward trend in television viewership. The significantly colder weather and a rich programming lineup encouraged viewers to spend more ti...

18/12/2025

Gracenote helps TV platforms go beyond the game and deliver more connected, visually rich sports hub experiences

As viewers turn to sports highlights, recaps and documentary programming, expand...

18/12/2025

NAB Once Again Urges FCC to Eliminate Ownership Rules

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

18/12/2025

Carr Stands Up for His Policies in Senate Hearing

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

18/12/2025

The HELM and ARRI announce strategic partnership to redef...

The HELM, a global expert in cinematic live broadcast and high-end production workflows, has entered a strategic partnership with ARRI, the renowned designer an...

18/12/2025

Cadena Melodia Upgrades to DHD SX2 Audio Production Conso...

Cadena Melod a de Colombia (Cadena Melod a), a long-established Colombian radio network, has chosen DHD audio SX2 production consoles for integration into the m...

18/12/2025

Czech TV Elevates Video Streaming with Harmonic

Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Czech Television (Czech TV), the public broadcaster of the Czech Republic, has teamed up with Harmonic to modernize...

18/12/2025

Broadcast Solutions Group acquires PMT Professional Motio...

Broadcast Solutions Group, a leading system integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast and media industry, has announced the acquisition ...

18/12/2025

Keepit named a Leader in IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Sa...

Keepit, the SaaS data protection company, announced today that it has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS Data Protection 2025-2026 Vendo...

18/12/2025

Limecraft 2025 Version 8 adds User Controlled Notificatio...

Limecraft today announced the release of Limecraft 2025.8, the eighth and final major platform update of the year. This release strengthens daily workflows acro...

18/12/2025

creativespace Expands Footprint in the House of Worship M...

DigitalGlue is very grateful, especially at this time of the year, that its creative.space platform has expanded its footprint within the House of Worship marke...

18/12/2025

TAG Video Systems Celebrates Multiple APAC Award Wins for...

TAG Video Systems is proud to share that the company has recently received multiple industry recognitions across the Asia-Pacific region, reflecting its ongoing...

18/12/2025

NDI and Zoom team up to bring seamless connectivity to me...

NDI, the leading video connectivity standard for AV-over-IP, and Zoom, the AI-first collaboration platform, announce a strategic collaboration to integrate the ...

18/12/2025

YES and Synamedia extended deal backs Partner TV launch

Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that it is extending its long-standing relationship with YES, the pay-TV subsidiary of the largest I...

18/12/2025

Riedel Builds Global Communication and Commentary Network...

Riedel Communications today announced it provided a fully integrated communications and commentary solution for the 15th National Games of China, supporting 56 ...

18/12/2025

Clear-Com Arcadia Central Station Links Toledo Walleye an...

When both the Toledo Walleye and Toledo Mud Hens play at home on the same night, communication between their respective production teams is essential. To stream...

18/12/2025

TMT Insights Focus Platform Recognized with TV Tech Best...

TMT Insights' new upstream media supply chain platform, Focus, was selected as a winner in the 2025 Media & Entertainment: Best in Market Awards in the TV T...

18/12/2025

Clear-Com Named Official Intercom Partner for NAMMs 125th...

Clear-Com is proud to announce its continued role as the official intercom supplier for the Yamaha Grand Plaza Stage at The 2026 NAMM Show, taking place Januar...

18/12/2025

CES: NBCU Unveils New Cross-Platform Ad Tech Solutions, Capabilities

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

18/12/2025

2026 NAB Show Opens Registration, Unveils Major Program Enhancements

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

18/12/2025

YouTube Wins Global Rights to Stream the Oscars

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

18/12/2025

PGA TOUR Studios Teams up with SES for Hybrid Content Distribution

Long-term agreement includes the SES SCORE platform and hybrid distribution worldwide to deliver more than 5,000 hours of golf tournaments annually featuring th...

18/12/2025

NVIDIA, US Government to Boost AI Infrastructure and R&D Investments Through Landmark Genesis Mission

NVIDIA will join the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Genesis Mission as a ...

18/12/2025

Master Clock Management with Segment Rulesets in WO Automation for Radio

Talk formats require careful clock management and system tools to ensure audio content aligns as intended. WO Automation for Radio's Segment Rulesets provid...

18/12/2025

Reflecting on 2025: A Year of Transformation and Growth

By Toni Coonce, CEO, WideOrbit As 2025 comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on how much WideOrbit has evolved, not only in products and solutions but also...

18/12/2025

VEON Upgraded to Nasdaq Global Select Market, Enhancing Investor Visibility

18 Dec 2025 VEON Upgraded to Nasdaq Global Select Market, Enhancing Investor Visibility Dubai, December 18, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital o...

18/12/2025

Tribeca X Launches Inaugural Advisory Council, Teases 2026 Awards Jury, and Announces New Global Programming

December 18th, 2025 Tribeca X Launches Inaugural Advisory Council, Teases 202...

18/12/2025

Tribeca Becomes First Major Film Festival to Open Submissions to Social Media Creators

December 18th, 2025 As Tribeca Celebrates Its 25th Anniversary, Festival Expa...

18/12/2025

Sky Sports remains the exclusive home of the Masters Tournament, with more live coverage than ever before

Thursday 18 December 2025 Sky Sports remains the exclusive home of the Masters ...