Tomas Egger

Hello Tomas. Could you please give us a little information/background about you and your company (projects you have been working on)?


HouseI'm Tomas Egger, nowadays Film Director and VFX Supervisor of AD Studio, a TV Advertising Studio in Brazil. I helped found AD 7 years ago with Jarbas Agnelli, the owner and one of the best Advertising men in the country. We started working on video clips, one per year, and were successfully rewarded at the Video Music Awards, Brazil by MTV. My first commercial in AD Studio was for Bradesco (bank company) titled “Mouse”. After that, we had the opportunity to work with great global brands such as Coca-Cola, Nokia, Motorola, Fiat, VolksWagen and more.

What got you interested in doing Motion Graphics and animation for Television? Do you remember your first project?

Since my father took me to see “Star Wars” in 1978 (we had a one year delay in those days…) I knew I would work with animation and VFX. In 1994, when I was a freelance artist, a friend asked me to do some motion graphics design for some Brazilian documentaries for Grifa Films. I remember that with this money I bought my first copy of EIAS and learned extremely fast. I immediately did my first visualization for Natura Cosmetics, the largest Brazilian cosmetic company. Since then, I have never stopped working with EIAS.

What's your favorite project to date?

TIM FingerThe most challenging project was a music video clip called “Get Down” that I made for AD band. The most beautiful, was also a music video clip entitled “Instinto Coletivo” for O Rappa band.

Why do you use EIAS for your projects?

It’s very easy to use, so intuitive. It Handles millions of polygons. It also produces the most beautiful renders in the least amount of time.

What is your favorite EIAS feature?

AbnormalI can tell you for sure, the final image quality is something amazing.

What other software besides EIAS do you use and do they work well together?

I usually work with After Effects, Synth Eyes, Real Flow, Maya (my wife’s name, can I believe it?!) and Motion builder. All of them work fantastic together, and much better after the release of FBX for EIAS.

What about character animation? Do you find the Motionbuilder/EIAS/FBX combo a good alternative for animators?( Any example where you've used EIAS and motionbuilder?)

I was really happy about the release of FBX for EIAS. When FBX was in its Beta cycle I did my last music video clip, “Abnormal”. I won the Art Direction prize in VMB; a project that I recorded and edited all mocaps using motion builder and importing via FBX into EIAS. I’m expecting new tools of character animations to be improved in the future.

Any tip you would like to give new EIAS users or any productivity tip for pros?

Motorola-KrzrAlways work with low resolution versions to fast previews and render your final images in high resolution controlled by XPressionist. Use XP Scripts to speed up your layers animation.

My tools in EIAS: CA animations use Encage plug-in, AG Shaders, M-Forge shader, all Northernlights3d plug-ins. And I'm happy to see new, fantastic plug-ins from Paralumino.

Any cool projects for the future?

I really would like to work on a project for children, a 3D effects TV show for instance. That’s something I’m thinking of. Meanwhile I have tons of TV advertising to finish and I want to direct my own Music Video Clip.