The Omni product is a special type of light and light fitting, which can be fitted into ceilings very quickly compared to competing products. So they wanted the 3D animation to demonstrate this and to demonstrate the features of this light fitting and light bulbs.

Scolmore had again come up with the concept that they wanted, the visual style that they wanted, and had even created storyboards. From here we saw that they wanted us to do, and we understood exactly what was needed. And so we worked as fast as we could to get this animation created for the deadline, for the launch of their product.

We received some models as CAD files once more, and we converted these to Lightwave 3D objects, and created the materials for these 3D models. These were animated moving around the scene, flashing in time to music to the correct tempo, to create the effect of a disco floor. We had to create special techniques to animate these lights flashing, because we didn’t want to animate thousands of lights by hand. So, we had to develop a special technique in order for this to be partially automated.

The result was great – they really enjoyed the animation they came out – and this time with some very cool music in the style of “Daft Punk”.

After we had rendered the animation, using the state of the art renderer Octane, Scolmore took this animation and created the text and graphics overlays, before the animation went live on Youtube and in trade centres.

We were told that the animation was very well received, and it was quickly one of the most popular videos on the Scolmore Youtube video channel.

Scolmore already had in mind the visual style that they were after, so they gave us quite a clear brief on what this animation to look like. We receive the models from CAD files which we converted for 3D animation and enhanced them, before creating the materials for the renderer.

In this animation, we had to have the lights switches flying in and out the screen, connecting together, connecting with the container light boxes, to try to make this look as exciting as possible and bring them to life using physics and gravity towards the end of the sequence.

The client had chosen some rather fun music which suited this animation well, and it helped tie the piece together. Scolmore handled the text overlays themselves to create the final live version for the public. We thought that the animation looked rather good in the end.

We took some of the real physical components, a couple of CAD files, and received photo references of the rest. From these, we created the models which could be animated. The scene inside a sort of office environment was built, with mostly outdoor lighting set to fill the room.

The objects and scenes were built in Lightwave 3D once more, with the glorious Octane renderer.

Again, our team provided a bespoke music composition, and sound design to bring the visuals to life.

Once all the low-resolution samples were signed off, and music approved, the piece was rendered at 1080p HD and delivered in time for the product’s promotional launch.

Another successful animation project delivered!

Work-in-progress

Elta were taking part in a trade show in Germany, and required this animation as part of their campaign. We were required to create a 3D animation with a lot of 2D animation combined into it, in a very short space of 10 days. This was a project that would normally required 3 weeks, so our team pulled together, to work through the clock to turn this around as fast as possible.

The project was designed to show the history of Elta, its growth, changes, acquisitions, and products. Not early did we animate the 3D scenes and 2D animations and characters, we also handled the sound design and laying the music in place to deliver a complete animation project.

Ultimately, this was shown at the trade show in Germany expand across a quad panel of HDTVs on a very large stage. We were told it went down very well.

Darke Studios and Elemental Media worked in tandem for the concept, and with storyboards in hand produced by ourselves, they pitched this to the client. The idea was that the illustrated birds from the bird feed packaging should be living and portrayed within live action scenes. Once the concept was signed off, Elemental and Darke handled the film production side of things. However, on the day of the shoot, Dom and Paula from Brace Media were on set to lend a hand and collect reference materials for the 3D animation.

The project was a challenge, ensuring the birds looked enough like their 2D counterparts while being 3D to bring to life. During the project, goals moved a bit here and there with additional 3D shots requested by Ernest Charles; and shots that were meant to be static (and so were shot against a static greenscreen) were then required to be moving, meaning that suddenly we had to create additional CGI. Things like this did increase the workload but we got through it. Modelling, animation and rendering was handled by our chosen tool, Lightwave 3D.

As the shed interiors were shot with greenscreen behind the window, we also needed to chromakey those shots, and add in season-driven background plates outside the shed.

After rendering in HD, we passed the sequenced back to Elemental Media who were handling the edit and grading on this occasion, who created the final loop-able sequence that would be on show in stores.

Production photos

Wyatt had done a lot of preparation for this project, and had created a concept of trays being fitted together super quickly thanks to Legrand’s new Swiftclip product. They figured a great way to show this would be to have the camera ‘riding’ the cable trays like a rollercoaster, with the track building ahead of the camera. They had storyboarded all of this before they brought us in on the project.

Once they did, and everything was signed off to commence, once again, we turned to our faithful tool, Lightwave 3D. With this we accurately modelled all the components. Animation was done using a mixture of Lightwave and Messiah, combining everything together. Materials, lighting and camera work were all handled inside Lightwave with the photoreal rendering this time being performed by the state-of-the-art GPU renderer, Octane. And what lovely results it gave.

Due to the scope of the project, it warranted not only some nice sound design, but also custom composed music too! Our guys handled this nicely, making the pictures come alive with even more dynamism.

After about 6 weeks work, we finally got everything signed off so we could render at 1080p HD quality. This was used for the launch of the product and from what we hear, it went down very well!

The talented guys (and girls) at Wyatt had worked with Saint Gobain to understand the message required in their animation, and created a concept and storyboard for it. Saint Gobain were quickly onboard and at this stage Wyatt asked us at Brace Media to help create the sequence.

The concept revolved around the idea of rotating and spiraling, due to the product name VortX. This is one of Saint Gobain’s draining solutions covering different drain types, shapes, materials and uses with different kinds of connections and pipe.

We worked closely with Wyatt, taking away a box or two of heavy items as reference. Our team had to model these accurately, again using our trusty Lightwave 3D tool. Materials were created here also, and scenes were set up for animation. Once low-resolution renders were signed off,  we moved forward with sound design and final HD rendering simultaneously – rendering performed on our favourite renderfarm to ensure rapid turnaround.

Shortly after that we finished up any last touches and exported various versions for different uses – Youtube, Powerpoint and so on.

The Wyatt team were chuffed with the result for Saint Gobain.

They had already worked with Norgren many times and wanted to take this to a higher level than before with 3D. The models and materials needed to looks pretty photoreal, while mixing in hand drawn elements and text styles.

There were several key items that needed demonstrating. The idea was also to not only move around the objects but through them now and then. We had to work out the best way to do this and produce this in the short timeline. There was to be no sound design or music for these animations as they would be talked over by Norgren presenters. The look and feel needed to match Norgren’s branding and their printed promotional materials.

As usual, Lightwave 3D was our tool of choice for photoreal modelling and CAD conversion, and for the animation and rendering too. If memory serves, we were getting render times of about 15 seconds per frame, which is pretty impressive. Even so, due to the deadline, we used our usual quality renderfarm to get all the frames rendered in time in 720p and sorted all the 2D animation elements on top at the same time.

Norgren were pleased with the outcome as it was was their best looking CGI (computer generated imagery) project to date.

In a particular set up, the trays has been arranged in a big array. We had to recreate this set up (seen near the end of the sequence) and then demonstrate the set up being built. This meant careful photoreal accurate modelling of all the components, understanding how they fit together and how they would be connected, and being able to demonstrate the different joins and so on. It was actually pretty interesting! We used our usual pipeline for this, consisting mostly of Lightwave 3D, for modelling, animation and rendering.

On top of this, our team also handled the sound design, and rendering was done on our chosen renderfarm, so we were able to complete the whole thing smoothly and export high quality clips to the client’s specifications.

The project took place over around 3-4 weeks, and was fairly smooth throughout.

Norgren were needing to show the benefits of their new IVAC unit, and how it fits into engineered pipelines. The advertising agency had created a hand drawn concept. They had pitched this to Norgren and had already created storyboards.

We then had to follow these storyboards and create the linework needed to match the style. Once this was sorted, we brought it to life in motion-graphics form, and rendered it out in HD. It had a pleasant looking outcome!