>> Click here (Save Link target as) to download the animation <<

The ad agency in Saudi-Arabia ultimately wanted us to create CG 'steam' characters doing the trademark movements of well-known soccer players.
Creating this intriguing visual effect was a complex tast involving careful planning, live actors, motion capture, software programming (MEL) and finally, the compositing of all the elements.
We created the 'steam' out of nearly 1.3 Million particles.
Although it increases the workload, we prefer to render particles in several passes to give us the freedom to make changes without having to render the whole project again. Working with particles is also time consuming.
We built detailed 3D soccer players (geometry) as a target for particles so the positions of particles could be based on every single vertex of polygonal mesh. We tweaked and randomized some particle attributes to make them slightly off-target at specified times. This was better to create real looking turbulence effects.
Any critique would be appreciated. Enjoy!