Check out this new 3D animation from LA-based creative house King and Country for Motel 6
K&C were asked by Motel 6 to create this 30-second commercial to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
The spot takes us on a classic US family road trip that spans 50 years. Check out the old game console and camera!
There’s some lovely VFX work here with complex transitions (the stills do nothing to show this – so watch the video below). King and Country were responsible for the production, direction, editorial, animation/CGI, visual effects and finishing.
They produced the animation using Maya, V-Ray, PF Track, mental ray, Nuke, After Effects.
“When Peter Everitt and I came up with the idea, we didn’t think it would ever happen,” said Chris Smith, brand creative group head/writer at The Richards Group.
“It was just so much more ambitious than anything we’d ever tried for the brand. But that’s exactly what the client wanted for their 50th, so they took a risk. We feel really lucky to have a client like that. It’s funny how such a simple idea can be so complex to execute…
“The trick from a creative standpoint was for none of the effort to show. It all had to come off with the campaign’s long-established simplicity and approachability, with a subtle sense of humour that was surprising but not broad or slapstick. And K&C got that from the very beginning.”
The father’s facial hair was one of many major post-production challenges that King and Country faced: Since the actor’s head is turning while his mustache and sideburns grow out, K&C’s artists had to track his movement using a combination of PF Track and a few hand keys in Maya.
Styling the digital facial hair involved inventive use of Maya fur.
“The hair was lit with a basic setup of five lights and rendered with Mental Ray,” said K&C’s Andrew Cook. “To finish off the effect, the hair was colour and light matched to the actor’s real hair and blended into the final shot with a combination of Nuke and After Effects.”
“When it came to compositing the CG cars, we wanted things like the lighting, texturing, and colours to perfectly match the original cinematography,” said K&C’s art director Jon Lorenz.
“We made the decision to render the 3D from Maya V-Ray, and generated some stunning results for our compositors to work with in After Effects.
“Having our Maya artists render out UV Passes allowed the compositors to take a 2D texture image and re-map onto whatever was rendered from 3D, adding back in all the detail to the ageing body work.”
Check out more like this on our Showcase pages
Posted on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 3:39 pm under Commercial, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: 3D animation, After Effects, Friday Animation Fun, King and Country's Metamorphosis, Maya, mental ray, new 3D animation, Nuke, PF Track, V-Ray
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