In Vertex 'Underground,' a giant yellow 'C' surfaces from underneath the cracking pavement in the middle of a bustling New York City street to draw attention to HepC.

To bolster the new TV campaign, projected animated images were displayed on office buildings throughout Boston. According to The Mill Design Director Jeff Stevens, "The idea of "breaking out from within" was conveyed through typography.  The messages were delivered as though they were being slammed onto the concrete surfaces of the buildings, with CG concrete crumbling to reveal the hero 'C.'"

"The creative challenges of this project were to make the 'C' feel monumental and immense, and to make the cracks in the pavement look realistic," explains The Mill's Lead 3D Artist Myung Lee. "We worked closely with the director, agency creatives and the client to develop the look and texture of the 'C' as well as the composition of the cracks and rubble for each shot."

Stevens recalls the challenges the team faced creating the projections: "We didn't know on which buildings or surfaces these projections would live, so we had to approach the technique blindly. We ultimately made decisions that would guide the client to select the most appropriate surfaces for the end creative product."

Similar to the projections, Lee and her team had to deal with building the right kind of crack for each surface when working on the TV spot. She explains, "We took a lot of reference photos of what realistic cracks looked like on various surfaces. Some of the cracks close to the camera had to be modeled and textured in hi-res detail in Mudbox, which were then further enhanced in Flame. We hand-modeled and composed the set to address specific creative directions for the cracking of the ground and the rubble."

In addition to perfecting the cracks and rubble, 190 extras and a Massive crowd simulation had to be composited into the pull-out camera move, which was done in CG. The team used a combination of 2D and 3D tools such as Maya, Fracture, Mudbox, Mental Ray, Nuke and Flame to create the animation and effects.

The most useful piece of equipment for the projections, however, was the projector, says Stevens. It never left his team's side and enabled them to test the work in progress on a variety of surfaces.