I was approached by Shake Creative Media to create some animations for the Target Australia – Sustainable Christmas campaign video series they were producing. The video in question needed to elements animation: An intro, and a brief explainer section – the former is detailed here.
Create a 3D-rendered gift using Target Australia’s 2023 promotional gift wrapping and have it open to reveal the title card. The time limit is 6 seconds.
Alex, from Shake Creative Media, and I decided it needed an establishing shot of the gift, a camera move to top-down view, and to end with a transparency to transition into the live-action video. The final render should be realistic and mimic a studio set-up.
For the studio I set up a quick cyclorama, a three-point lighting system and a camera on a moving circular rig. See Process Video right. However, the complexities of the project came from efforts to increase realism, and are detailed below.
Accepting that a gift is essentially just a rectangular box, I knew that it would be the subtle features which would be the most important. In order to make the model realistic it needed:
For this last variation I ran a simulation of the box mesh as a light cloth being filled with just enough air pressure to maintain it’s rough shape. This pressure had to be very precise. I stopped the simulation when satisfied with the effect then froze it. See Project Images right for settings and a clearer demonstration.
After this new mesh was created I could cut out the top section, pin the edges and slice rough cuts into it. This allow me to run another simulation in which pressure pushing upwards would tear the wrapping paper open.
Both these simulations were a matter of very precise values and are detailed in Project Images.
Thanks for your work on the Target video. It was awesome to work together and the result was great! They were super happy too.
I'd love to have the animation you did for us in the showreel.
Final result on the Target Australia YouTube channel:
