[bUUt] - Spectrum
[<<<Back to the Story>>>]
One peculiar morning, an enigmatic email with an attachment called "cool.exe" appeared in my inbox. The send date implied it had boomeranged back from some proximate future. Naturally as one does with such enigmatic fruit dropped from the aether I opened it without a second thought. After shooing away some pesky warnings and installing the app, my desktop sprouted a folder filled with mp4s, images, and a cryptic "readme.info" file. Upon closing a couple hundred pop-up ads and ceremoniously restoring Windows to its former glory, I was greeted by an intriguing fragment of an advertising campaign. It heralded the [bUUt], a revolutionary Space Boot from the future, crafted to launch consumers on an absurd, commercially subsidised mission to the stars and the very fabric of reality itself…
[Press Pack 1.0]
Some of images accompanying the files are displayed below. Leaning into and promoting the Scalar Wave Technology aspect of the product with a call to action "GET SCALAR". Seems someone on the campaign got a little too "Scalar" one Friday after work and accidentally emailed them to the past.
[bUUt] - Cinematic
Alternate but original execution of the commercial. Straight to the point with no fluff.
[Press Pack 2.0]
Additional images from the second press pack appear to hint at the relativistic properties of the technology. Could this be our first glimpse of product placement at the cellular or atomic scale? Perhaps some playfully enhanced electron microscope imagery?
[Process]
The genesis of this faux mini campaign for an imaginary product began with a simple experiment. I wanted to see how generative AI might reinterpret a pair of hiking boots my wife had recently purchased, with the goal of designing a product for a motion design footwear commercial with a sci-fi twist. While I'm still undecided on how we'll ultimately integrate AI into our artistic workflows, it’s undeniable that AI can effectively kickstart the creative process without taking over the proverbial creative wheel. Leveraging its rapid iteration capabilities, I built a small image deck to brainstorm forms and concepts. This was as far as I was willing to go with AI at the time—greasing the creative wheels with some inspiration, donning my headphones, and seeing where the flow would take us...
[Flow]
With personal passion projects like this I like to start with a blank canvas, "sketch" in 3d and refine until I have something I like. Just dive in all guns blazing. Drawing inspiration from the intriguing and unusual shapes generative AI delivered, I compiled them into a deck of images using the fantastically useful "Pureref" app to keep them in view as I worked.
Ultimately I ended up using the images very loosely, glancing at them for inspiration while aiming for a final result that looked a little more utilitarian and hard-wearing. After all, this thing needed to go to space and bully physics into submission right? Below is time-lapse of the modelling, UV mapping, texturing and shading process with Blender and Substance Painter.
This project also served as a way for me to learn more about Blender's modeling tools. The fastest way to learn is to dive headfirst into something unfamiliar and hold on tight...
[Substance Painter Viewport Experiments]
After completing the model, I experimented with shooting it from different angles to see what kind of imagery I could get straight out of Substance Painter. These initial shots were rough and ready, but they sparked ideas for how I would ultimately decide to shoot the asset in the final project.
[Exploring]
Next, I took some viewport screen grabs from Substance Painter and pulled them into Procreate on my iPad. Experimenting with glitchy shapes inspired some of the graphical elements I used in the "Spectrum" version of the project further down the line. Although I didn’t end up using the glitches, I loved the idea of the ad appearing as a corrupted file in someone's inbox due to an absurd twist of fate—an administrative hiccup from the Bureau of Time and Space itself. Whoopsie. Silly things like world-building and creating a little universe keep an abstract, open-ended project like this fun and engaging.
[Getting things moving]
Enough mucking about with the asset — time to roll up some sleeves and start building out the project. Did I mention I created a whole separate commercial for this project that will never see the light of day? Here is a very early draft of that version, just in case that pesky Bureau of Time and Space claims I didn't.
[Moving along]
The original goal of this project was to create a motion design product visualization for a fictitious footwear product. The first version ended up being more of a short story than a motion design project so it was time to regroup. Below is some previs of an early pre-fx draft of the final version .
[Houdini-ish]
While the Houdini software itself wasn't used on this particular project, I still wanted to infuse some magic regardless of trademarked software monikers. My pyro sims were created in both Embergen and natively inside Cinema 4d with its newly added pyro simulation engine. You might notice a lack of Italian gastronomy in the final product but the growing spaghetti in the GIF below was used to help direct the direction of the pyro simulation via field force so as to give it a more flowing, art directed look. Which in itself was a rope simulation! Simulation inception, fitting the Hans Zimmer-esque soundtrack to the project.
[Lookdev Lighting Test]
Before Lighting the project I wanted to get a sense of what things might look like in motion, here is one of the very early tests.
[Let there be Sound]
The sound for this project was created by the wonderful and insanely talented folks at Folding Waves. Brought to life on a sonic diet comprised of a Hanz Zimmer and Transformers movie sound design sandwich. Simon Bird, Damian Malony and Mark Bergin managed to imbue the project with exactly the sonic palette I had envisioned in my minds ears while creating the visuals. To the point of me questioning whether they had in fact climbed inside my brain. They hadn't. There were no notes, they nailed it in one shot and I'm absolutely delighted to be lucky enough to have the team bring it to life so fittingly. So please check them out if you are in need of some sonic savants for your own projects.
