With PETA's "The Great Ape" commercial, photo-real CGI has been pushed to an exciting new level. New technology was developed for muscle and skin simulation, as well as a virtual bloodstream and a complex hair deformation and collision system. These new technologies allowed us to create a chimpanzee that is practically indistinguishable from his flesh-and-blood counterpart.

The chimpanzee was largely built in the XSI environment with a great deal of research and development in ICE (Interactive Creative Environment). These new tools were custom built at The Mill specifically for this project. A major focus while creating the chimpanzee was on building an entire muscle/skin simulation system from scratch and on getting a proprietary setup that would be efficient, flexible and highly optimized for a commercial workflow and an advertising schedule.

For the CG artists, the most exciting part of the project was the implementation of these new techniques. A creature has been crafted that literally has bones, muscles, pumping blood, skin and hair.

A heart beat set up to 120 bpm was generated based on actual chimpanzee heart rates. This was created in order to get blood attributes traveling through the body so as to make the chimpanzee appear more alive.

Each hair was attached to the chimpanzee's skin. The underlying muscle movements were translated through the skin surface affecting the hair. Individual pores were also created at the base of every single hair, raising the level of realism.

The skin tension and wrinkles were a very challenging part of the process. Every deformation of the skin needed to look and feel believable, and any movement needed to have wrinkles moving realistically over the muscles and bones. A complex epidermal simulation algorithm was created that helped reach this level of realism.

No hands were laid on a real ape, nor life casts made of any primates. Nor was there access to any real fur. Every part of our chimpanzee was created from scratch, by hand, in CGI.

The development of this new technology was fueled by the passion of dozens and dozens of specialists that only had one thing in mind: to prove that there is a way to protect great apes through innovative technology. Hopefully, Hollywood and Madison Avenue will agree.

From the release of the initiative, over 35,000 people in advertising and 10 of the top advertising networks in the U.S. pledged to never use a real ape in their productions.