When I heard that there was a new short based on the work of M. C. Escher, I didn't think much of it. Escher's a common subject in CG, and the Graphics magazines even run Escher competitions from time to time. I'd never seen it done particularly artfully. Most Escher homages are heavy on the optical illusion, but what was always lost in the translation to CG was Escher's sense of elegance.

However, from the moment Cristóbal Vila's Snakes website loaded on my screen, I knew this one was different. Vila has an impeccable feel for design, composition and elegance, and it's evident in everything he does. This is a wonderful piece, hypnotic, and sophisticated. I highly recommend it.

SPANISH (For English, see the translation below)

Snakes ha sido un proyecto muy curioso. Inicialmente ni siquiera iba a ser una animación, sino sólo una ilustración CG basada en la obra del gran Escher (su obra póstuma), algo similar a lo que anteriormente había hecho con la "Canestra de Fruta" de Caravaggio.

El trabajo de Escher siempre me ha interesado por que en él se fusionan un alto contenido estético-artístico con un profundo interés y  atracción por la ciencia. Escher nunca se consideró a sí mismo como un artista especialmente dotado y lo que de verdad le atraía era la geometría y  los fenómenos ópticos y visuales. Pero la realidad es que hay mucha gente a quien le impacta profundamente su obra, más que muchos otros "artistas" del siglo XX. Y yo soy uno de esos admiradores.

Escher trabajó en muchos proyectos donde abordaba el problema de las ilusiones ópticas, creando espacios imposibles muy difíciles de representar con heramientas 3D, porque se apoyan precisamente en el engaño visual producido por una representación bidimensional de un mundo tridimensional.

Sin embargo Snakes no es una figura imposible. Es una obra relativamente sencilla -en comparación con algunas otras dentro de la producción de Escher- pero me resultaba especialmente atractiva, elegante y perfectamente realizable con las herramientas 3D.

El tejido formado por las anillas, la evolución de tamaños que se dan en ellas, las pequeñas y sutiles variaciones de forma que sufren para poder unirse, la manera en que las serpientes se entralazan con las anillas y consigo mismas para formar un conjunto tan equilibrado, elegante y de una simetría tan compleja... Todos estos eran los aspectos que me atraían de este trabajo.

Al poco de empezar me di cuenta de las posibilidades que tenía este proyecto para ser animado, pero de tal manera que no se convirtiese en unos simples "vuelos" alrededor del conjunto. Este cambio de idea supuso una mayor complejidad a la hora de abordar todo el proyecto.

Hubo dos cosas que resultaron especialmente complicadas:

- Modelar todas la anillas de manera que se entralazasen y no penetraran unas dentro de las otras. Esto suponía que había que introducir diferentes deformaciones, pero al mismo tiempo, quería que las anillas fueran lisas cuando se soltaran. El morphing 3D entre un conjunto de elementos con tantos polígonos supuso un problema bastante considerable.

- Conseguir que las serpientes se movieran entre las anillas entrando y saliendo por sus huecos y entrelazandose consigo mismas sin chocar (cuando realmente se creó sólo el movimiento de una de ellas para después copiar  radialmente el conjunto).

La elección de la música de Satie creo que le ha añadido un cierto misterio y ha contribuido a realzar el tono ligeramente hipnótico de los movimientos.

Para terminar, simplemente decir que me ha sorprendido muy gratamente la buena aceptación que ha tenido este trabajo. Ese es el tipo de recompensa que me hace continuar con mi trabajo.

       --Cristóbal Vila, Enero, 2004

ENGLISH

"Snakes" has been a very curious project. Initially, it was not even going to be an animation, but only one CG illustration based on the work of the great M. C. Escher, something similar to which previously I have done with the "Canestra de Fruta" of Caravaggio.

The work of Escher always has interested me because he perfectly merges a high aesthetic-artistic content with a deep interest and attraction to science. Escher never considered himself to be an artistic genius -- what really attracted him to his work was the phenomenon of geometric optical illusion. But the reality is that there are many people who respond to his work more than many other artists of any century. And I am one of those admirers.

In Escher's many studies treating the subject of optical illusion, he created impossible spaces which are very difficult to represent with 3D tools. This is because those works depend on the visual deceit produced by a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world.

Nevertheless Snakes is not an impossible figure. It is a relatively simple work in comparison with some others Escher created. But it was especially attractive to me: the group formed by the rings, the changes of sizes that occur in them, the small and subtle form variations they undergo in order to be able to be joined, the way in which the serpents interlaced themselves with the rings, striking a balance of elegance and symmetry... All these were the aspects that attracted me to this work, but I was also drawn by the fact that as complex and interesting as it was, this image was at the same time perfectly attainable with my 3D tools.

Soon after beginning, I realized the great possibilities that this project held for animation, but I didn't want to create just a simple "flight" around the set. This change of idea created greater complexity and greatly increased the time I had to allot to the project.

There were two things that were especially complicated:

- To model all interlaced rings in a form that they did not penetrate within the others. This supposed that I need to introduce different deformations, but at the same time, I wanted that the rings to be smooth when they were alone. 3D morphing between a set of elements with so many polygons presented a considerable problem.

- To make it so that the serpents moved between the rings entering and leaving by their hollows and interlacing themselves without blocking one another (when really the movement of one of them was simply copied and rotated into a new position).

The selection of the music of Satie I believe has added a certain mystery and it has helped to heighten the slightly hypnotic tone of the movements.

The positive response to this this work has surprised to me very much, and has pleased me greatly. That is the best reward, and I will certainly continue with my work.

      --Cristóbal Vila, January, 2004