Monday 26 Mar 2007
Taking eight months, and resulting in over 900 detailed 3D illustrations plus animation, Medi-Mation has redrawn the human anatomy.
The Human Body Book, the task challenged the team both creatively and technically.
Deploying Splutterfish Brazil and Autodesk 3DS Max, Medi-Mation updated the original imprint's painted artworks, providing a visual tour of the human body in all its biological wonder.
Following the win for the project, which included over 900 illustrations plus animations for the included DVD, the team faced the cold reality of the sheer size of the task.
"Our initial euphoria then slowly became panic when we started to realize the volume of work and detail that would be required," reveals Medi-Mation creative director Rajeev Doshi. "We decided to buy in the best commercially available human anatomy models - the Zygote Human model collections (www.3dscience.com).
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"This included skin, skeletal, muscle, and most organs systems, both male and female. However, as we started to look at the systems in more detail and after hearing some of the comments from the medical consultants, we realized that these were not going to be detailed enough for the book.
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"So an additional level of modelling was required, especially since many of the artworks would be A3 spreads. This was in addition to all the new models that would be created for the project showing things at the sub-organ, cellular, or sub-cellular level."
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The brief evolved creatively over the course of the project - and one of the key concerns was the level of realism presented by 3D infographics.
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"The initial response was great, but some people felt [the illustrations] looked a bit too realistic and that could be a problem for the readership," explains Doshi.
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<div class=inlineimage><img src=](/images/features/1574/Conception_Anim_Stills2.jpg)
"Medical illustrations are probably about the most difficult type of illustration to do because although there are many absolutes, there are just as many grey areas where the variation between individuals' anatomy such as size, shape and even position meant that it was sometimes tricky to reach a compromise where everyone was happy," adds Doshi.
"The sheer complexity of the interactions between structures meant many modelling headaches. We were pretty confident of the detail and quality of the illustrations, and the fact they were being done in 3D would be enough to provide a visually engaging experience.
"The icing on the cake was a series of seven action-oriented double-page spreads. These dealt with the cardiac cycle, a neuronal impulse, conception, digestion, gas exchange in the lung, inflammation and a cell to body system artwork. In these cases we were allowed to push the book style and technical envelope a bit further by having black backgrounds and using more advanced rendering techniques," he adds.
Body language
"One of the creative challenges was that we should be able to see how organs and systems go in front and behind the skeleton," says Doshi. "However, anything that went behind the skeleton couldn't be obscured but be seen under a ghosted skeleton.
"We didn't want to render everything (skeleton and system) in a single pass so that we would still have maximum flexibility in post to tweak elements."
"The final artwork has a touch more airbrushing than I would have liked, but it was that or my sanity!" he says.
Matthew Bath
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