It's Only Paper, Right? Pingo van der Brinkolev only wanted to create a new type of stock photo using Maxon Cinema 4D, but things turned out differently.

What Pingo van der Brinkolev actually wanted to do was create a new type of animated stock photos, for which he had already created a design. What was special about his scenes was the origami-like look of the models that all looked like they were made of folded paper. Pingo also created looping animations for these folding objects, which means that the observer doesn’t know when the animation begins or when it ends.

Pingo put a lot of work into the look of the paper, which he wanted to render flicker-free using GI within a realistic timeframe. Using a combination of QMC GI, backlighting and a balanced amount of secondary reflection, he was able to reduce the render time per frame to about 5 minutes. Pingo used the Cloner object to create the animation loops, and the MoGraph feature was one of the most important tools for adding a slight amount of irregularity to the otherwise very smooth movements.

When Brinkelov presented his works as stock graphics, they were received very positively. The webmaster for the site on which the animations were offered was impressed. But nobody bought the animations! So his work wouldn’t be for naught, Pingo added some camera movement, re-rendered the animations and created a short film with them that he posted at Vimeo. A few days later, the short film, which was named ‘It’s Paper’, was given the predicate Staff Pick and went on to become a hit. Brinkelov received invitations to be keynote speaker as well as numerous offers to cooperate on projects. In all, Pingo said that the response and resulting opportunities were overwhelming, and adds with a wink of the eye, “… with very little effort!”

Pingo van der Brinkolev's website:
www.pingo.nu