Client – N/A
CGI Model – Dr Gareth Beale (Original modelling), Grant Cox (Re-model/Materials/Lighting/Rendering/Animation).
Software – 3DS Max/Corona/After Effects
Research – Specialist input from Professor David Hinton and Professor David Peacock.
The Witham Bowl is a lost example of Anglo-Saxon silverware, possibly “the most remarkable piece of pre-Conquest plate ever found in England” – T. D. Kendrick. It’s last known location was at the National Exhibition of Work of Art at Leeds General Infirmary in 1868. Discovered in the River With in Lincolnshire in 1816 along with other items including a wooden canoe after a course of drainage works it is thought to have been made in the late 8th or early 9th Century AD. With only drawings and illustrations of the bowl remaining, the piece sat as an ideal case study to take into CGI, not just to re-envision this amazing piece of silverware, but also to potentially raise public awareness to its plight.
The CGI model was originally created by Dr Gareth Beale during his time as part of the Archaeological Computing Research Group at the University of Southampton. After taking over the project in 2011, it was updated and taken into the Corona rendering engine before being developed into an animation.
