Swiss luxury watch brand Hublot assigned Sandro Baebler to shoot a portrait of one of their ambassadors, Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang.
Sandro’s portrait session had unforgettable musical accompaniment, which can also be seen on his Facebook page here.
After his work with the musician in a studio the photographer asked us to add a specific Manhattan skyline view as a background.
Sandro suggested the perfect place – a rooftop bar with spectacular views. Our New York team organised the permit and set out to shoot the night time scene. As the location did not allow the use of tripods we had to shoot at a high ISO setting, but by stitching together many exposures we were able to make a handheld ultra high resolution panorama.
The initial stitched panorama:
Our studio in London created the piano, room elements and flooring in CGI and merged them skilfully and seamlessly with the panorama and the portrait to create an atmospheric night-time cityscape.
See how the image was built up in the Making-Of video here:
The final campaign image with added product photography, as used on billboards and in magazines worldwide.
Our friend Nick Meek approached our London team with this evocative night shot from Tokyo.
He took it a while ago and always loved it, but kept feeling it needed something extra. He began to wonder what it would look like if the rolling gate was opened – just enough to reveal something special.
Researching vintage cars, he found an unusual and elegant 1970s supercar with a plum paint and golden trim to the scene, and asked us if we could add it to the scene.
Excited about this extraordinary request we reached into our magic bag of CGI tricks, lifted the door and settled on parking this sweet Maserati Bora inside.
After a successful collaboration process, we’re all happy with the atmospheric result.
Red Car, Red Room
We were so happy with how the Maserati turned out that we wanted to work with it some more. A CGI group challenge, themed on “Red Car, Red Room” was the perfect place to take the car out of the garage and reveal it in all its glory. Take a closer look at the exotic and gorgeous Maserati Bora in detail here.
Crop detail of the gold trim:
Software:
Autodesk Maya
Chaos Group V-Ray
Adobe Photoshop
We relished the challenge of creating this CGI Porsche Panamera in the rain for a campaign from Kemper Kommmunikation with photographer Erik Chmil.
Here’s a look into how we made it. There’s a selection of 100% crops to zoom in on the details, and a video where you can feast your eyes on the perfectly rendered raindrops on the CGI Porsche.
We used Autodesk VRED to make the car. This execution, with its intricate raindrops, was particularly interesting. The finished image (above) is packed with finely observed details.
As always, the CGI process is grounded in observations of reality. CGI artist Ivo Stanev spent time studying the interaction between the raindrops and the surface of the car. The water acts like hundreds of tiny lenses and we found the best way to light them was to use high resolution HDRI spheres.
Due to their hemisphere shape, formed as the round drops hit a flat surface, the raindrops catch light from the many sources in a night scene like this- street lamps, headlights, windows and so on. This is what makes them sparkle.
Mapping techniques:
To do this, we used high-resolution rain textures with displacement mapping. However, because we wanted to be flexible it was important to react quickly to changes, so we used both triplanar and UV mapping (the process of projecting a 2D image to a 3D model’s surface for texture mapping )
Working with triplanar mapping gives us flexibility because we can easily change the form of the raindrops, especially as the CGI modelled Porsche has High Density Geometry. A good example is the windshield, where UV mapping allowed is to model windscreen wipers with a specific movement. For the rest of the car we used triplanar mapping for flexibility.
It was important for us to show the effect of the wind, changing the shape of the raindrops as they move along the surface of the car’s body.
Also some elements are not as simple to add as you might imagine! We wanted moving, blurred windscreen wipers of course…so we carefully painted where and how the raindrops moved, depending on the motion of the windscreen wipers.
The rendering took a lot of time as well – we used full Global Illumination with a lot of samples…and of course only one HDRI sphere wasn’t enough, so we had to use two or three of them.
We are really pleased with the end result – the painstaking work paid off beautifully.
Fly though the details in our video here…
Client: Porsche Agency: Kemper Kommmunikation Photographer: Erik Chmil Creative Director: Nadine Kubis Post-Artist: Thomas Fritz / Recom Stuttgart CGI Artist: Eugen Albrandt / Recom Stuttgart CGI Artist: Ivo Stanev / Recom Stuttgart
A quick peek on-set, and behind the scenes with the photographer – shooting with Uli Heckmann, for the launch of the new Mustang 2018 with GTB (formerly Team Detroit) and JB5 Productions.
The car wasn’t yet available for shooting, so we took shots of last year’s model as a stand-in to refer to, and then added this year’s car in CGI during post-production.
We always seem to be up ladders – shooting the models, and background separately. The stand-in car helps to get the lighting as realistic as possible.
The final shot with all elements combined, including CGI car swapped in.
Setting up the camera at the bridge – shooting HDR domes along the bridge with the Lizard to make a 360 light capture for the CGI car.
Final shot using the lighting captures for perfect realism on the CGI car
Stumptown brewery location. We shot all around this area, exploring different locations, areas and different talent options.
Final shot – This was put together from a number of different elements from the day’s shooting.
New work for Audi, a dark and dramatic concept, with a technical look in a virtual world, to emphasise the high level of intelligence in the cars’ systems. Read more
Marc Trautmann came to us with an idea for a creative collaboration between CGI, photography, and architecture. The astonishing sculpted form of the Lamborghini Aventador would be set in deconstructed architectural elements, inspired by Daniel Libeskind, with both the car and the setting realised entirely in CGI.
“The concept of the personal CGI work was to create power and dynamics by dissolving conventional spatial structures.”
We loved the idea of creating an environment that would mesh perfectly with the extravagantly powerful style of the car, the challenge of making such an impossible setting look believable, and of course the collaboration between three creative disciplines.
1.Sketching out ideas
The first stage is to sketch out the initial concepts – no matter how technological the execution, there’s still nothing like breaking out the sharpies and sketchpads for free experimentation and collaboration in the early stages.
2. Moodboard: structure, architecture, light.
When we are planning a deconstructed architectural enviroment, it’s vital to find reference for the elements so that they are completely convincing. We looked for abstract shattered planes and shards to inspire ideas, but also for reference of how light would move and react between the shapes. And we sought out architecture – both imagined and built – that was close to our vision, to see how it is structured in reality.
3. Architectural session
Marc worked with Franken Architekten to construct and then deconstruct a setting around the car. Originally created in architectural CAD, they were exported as .dwg files for us to work with in Maya.
4. Initial tests with the car
Once the initial concept is drafted, we began to refine the ideas in Maya. We experimented with different directions and angles and light sources within the architectural setting.
Once we were happy with the angles and the placement of the car, we crafted preliminary passes on lighting and mood.
5. Materials.
The next stage is to look in detail at the textures of concrete, steel and glass – once again, we make moodboards of real-world examples.
For the detailed observations to make the renders perfectly convincing, we used material references from Marc Trautmann – the concrete floor of his studio had the perfect worn industrial texture we were after.
With the textures in place, we worked with Marc in developing the background further. Together, we sketched out where texture and lighting should be refined and perfected.
6. Last adjustments
We tested colour and mood variants, fine-tuning the lighting and perfecting the dynamism and balance between the structures of the car and of the deconstructed setting. High resolution rendering in Vray shows how the details are coming together here.
7. The final artwork – three images of an extraordinary car in an extraordinary space.
Fly through the modelling and see how we built up the image, in our behind the scenes movie here!
Cable specifications! Some might say it’s strictly of interest to your more hardcore nerd, which of course we are. But this is what brings everyone the high speed internet we all love. So we thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of creating Virgin’s DOCSIS®3 Tech cable for a multi-platform campaign – both still and moving assets for print and video adverts.
One of the main challenges was creating a photo-realistic cable. This sounds a lot easier than it is, because when you look at a seemingly smooth metallic material in extreme close-up, it is never perfect. The minute imperfections are actually what gives metal its particular character. In previous campaigns, the cables were photographed – setting the bar high.
We developed custom shading networks including microscratch details giving them the imperfections of the real materials.
The braiding of the cable housing is perfect, right down to the compression of the snipped ends in the wires.
A myriad of tiny details were included, such as the champfering of the cable housing shown here.
Every bend and kink of the copper wiring was faithfully replicated
For flexibility in animation we developed a rig with which we could quickly adjust both the shapes and the timing of the cable’s growth.
We made three executions of the idea – Home, Gaming and Video versions.
The ads were shown all over the UK in an enormous variety of formats, all working well due to the extremely detailed CGI.
Credits:
Made in Maya
Rendered with V-Ray
Animation composited in After Effects
Stills retouching in Photoshop
All by Recom Farmhouse London
The latest Kronenbourg 1664 campaign for French advertising agency Herezie has been a great creative challenge. Working closely with the agency from pitch, through studio and location photography to CGI and post production, we were briefed to extend the iconic 1664 ribbon beyond the confines of the bottles label. The creatives at Herezie wanted us to push the boundaries of possibility, playing with perspective and scale in order to create a perfect red cross. Hence, we crafted pink flamingos flying over real beaches, a string of buoys floating on the Mediterranean Sea, a luxurious rooftop bar overlooking the Seine River with laser beams lighting up the city’s night sky which, together with the beer, continue the red ribbons of the 1664 logo.
This is the biggest international campaign Hamburg agency Kolle Rebbe has ever produced and it was also our most complex CGI production ever!
For Audi we created a full CGI winter landscape spiralling within itself: road, trees, rocks, snow, clouds and sky all curl around into a perspective that would have been impossible to photograph.
In these scenes the cars, also created in CGI, are speeding on a snowy road next to ski runs with real competing athletes.
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign (detail)
With a total of 52 motives distributed in 180 ski areas in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France, the teams in Berlin, Stuttgart and London joined forces to produce these mind twisting visuals under extreme time pressure. The heavy geometry of the landscapes required us to create a new pipeline to handle the different assets and be able to sculpt, texture and light the scenes in real time.
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign
Our CGI artists started with a simplified geometry of the spiral. Once the basic shape was achieved, this could then be sculpted in detail. In the meantime other artists were generating and rendering trees and moss.
Simplified geometry to create the spiral landscape
A small team went to Poland another one went to Chamonix in France where thanks to our friends Nick and Martha, we found the perfect locations to photograph and scan cliffs and rocks with a drone.
First 3D result of scanned rock
First 3D result of scanned rock
Terrain Geometry
CGI Trees
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign (detail)
Audi Quattro Winter Campaign (detail)
It has been a lot of intense work to produce all the visuals for this campaign, but nonetheless an amazing collaboration with the creatives at Kolle Rebbe! . . . and the campaign is everywhere!
CREDITS:
Client: Audi
Agency: Kolle Rebbe
Creative Director: Jörg Dittmann
Art Director: Benjamin Allwardt and Marcus Kubicke
Project Manager: Amelie Pamp
Art Buyer: Katja Sluyter
Post Production Project Manager : Lars Wittmaak / Recom Stuttgart
CGI Directors: Christoph Bolten / Recom Farmhouse London and Jonas Braukmann / Recom Berlin
CGI Lead Artist: Kristian Turner / Recom Farmhouse London
CGI Artists: Richard Jenkinson / Recom Berlin; Florian Einfalt and Dariusz Makowski / Recom Farmhouse London; Ivo Stanev / Recom Stuttgart
Post Artists: Pepê Alram and Kate Brown / Recom Farmhouse London; Christian Schemer and Nele Ebner / Recom Stuttgart; Jonas Braukmann / Recom Berlin
Kai Tietz approached us with yet another awesome Mercedes-Benz Sprinter advertising campaign – and we were happy to be part of the usual Team. We worked together with photographer Martijn Oort to create a series of visuals for the new Sprinter Edition campaign. Martijn was responsible for the photography part and CG supervision. He photographed the backplate and all the people. We created the vehicles and other key elements of the images in CGI. Kai Tietz managed the whole project in the background.
In the scene above, the balloon and the lower part of the building on the left hand side have been created in CGI. Due to location limitations on Berlin Gendarmenmarkt, we weren’t allowed to remove umbrellas in the background. That’s why we partly replaced the lower bit of the building with CG elements.
Martijn directed up to 50 people on a carpark in Berlin to populate the scene. All the people in the crowd have been masked and placed one by one in the image.
It was fun to create the balloon, although there were not lots of appropriate references to follow when it came to inflated elephants. We had to ask ourselves: “how does an elephant balloon fold once in tension?” and “how do the different parts of the balloon join together?” Below are screen grabs of the elephant modelled in Zbrush.
Here is the final CGI elephant balloon.
Below is a point cloud from our scans of the building we used to replace the umbrellas on Gendarmenmarkt.
For the image below, the whole quarry has been 3D scanned and recreated in Maya, though we only rendered the areas around the drillhead for the final image. The full quarry geometry helped us to position pipes, screws and detail elements on Martijn’s backplate photography anyway. The drill has been modelled in Zbrush and then we rendered everything (despite the vehicle, that was Vred) in Vray.
This is a snap taken whilst our CGI director and artists where on location scanning the quarry. And below a 3D cloud of the quarry’s wall stitched together.
Below are the sketches for the drill and the geometry created in ZBrush.
Martijn shot lots of awesome falling dust and gravel bits that we comped in photoshop. Have a look at the details of the final image by clicking on the image below and zooming in 100%.
CREDITS:
Client: Mercedes Benz
Agency: Lukas Lindemann Rosinski
Photographer: Martijn Oort
Projectmanagement: Kai Tietz Produktion Gmbh
Art Director: Dennis Mensching
Post-Artist: Jonas Braukmann / Recom Berlin
CGI-Artist: Richard Jenkinson / Recom Berlin
