elvis: Portal

Peri proactively worked with the Motion team and exc. creative director to create a 3D logo animation for elvis. The idea comes from our head of Motion, and Peri explored the animation style with our senior motion designer. We decided to use the movie 'Jumper' as a reference point, and created a series of VFX on top of the elvis yellow cube 3D animation. In which, Peri planned the storyboard and directed the animation in 3D composition and VFX. She then animated the elvis logo scene and yellow cube in cinema 4D, added VFX in After effects, and have done the SFX edits.

Client: elvis communication

Make sure you wear turn on sound / wear headphone!

Brainstorming
& Exploration

At the very beginning, I was researching about different style of portal animation, and was thinking how this could apply to the elvis brand - the challenge was that the yellow is really hard to stand out in white background, but looks a lot better in dark background. So it was a lot of test of how to push this further (Balancing the yellow glow with brighter background). In the mean time, I was also exploring multiple vfx styles in the scene. Such as smokes, yellow glow ring, particles etc.

Blow is some of Peri's storyboard, and exploration scene.

Story Planning
Art / Animation
Direction

At the first stage, I was considering what was the most efficient way to animate the cube, and adding VFX. Also, what was the easiest way to amend. How to bring up the yellow in the bright background? Where the yellow cube should appear on each frame? (i.e. sometimes it rolls and bounces on the ground, sometimes it flows in the air etc) Then I decided to render an elvis logo frame on still image without the yellow cube, and only animate the yellow cube in 3D for different position on each frame. This way, I can add VFX on each frame separately, and also easy to amend afterwards.

Behind
the scene

Once I decided the approach of rendering them in separate frames, I have set up a fake white studio in cinema 4D, and position the yellow cube in 5 separate file. Some with gravity and some without gravity so that I can use simulation in some of the scene that when I want the cube to drop on the ground in the exact speed and appear right in the exact position that I intended. Then I rendered them out in png sequences named Position 1 - 6, along with a high-res png for the background. I can then combine them in After Effects, and added extra VFX on top of the cube when I wanted it to appear and disappear.

Doing it this way, I can also then come back to amend the exact scene, without having to adjust the whole animation again and again. The strategy worked well, and the resulting work also look amazing.

Scene from Cinema 4D & Octane Renderer

elvis: Ice Age

Our exc. creative director came up with the idea of having the elvis yellow title jump on the ground and cracked the ground. In this version, I have been working closely with our senior motion designer to work out how to simulate a 3D cracked floor in the speed we wanted - without cracking the whole ground all at once. We aimed to give it a bit of fun and playful style.

Client: elvis communication

Behind
the scene

In this animation, we mainly used Voronoi Fracture to create the cracked floor, and used vertex map to control the simulation. I have decided not to add dynamics to the yellow title as it becomes too complicated and hard to control its movement if I added dynamics to the cube and collision to the ground along with the crack animation. So I animated the cube manually along with some displacer (bend / squash) effects to bring its movement to life.

Adjusting the cracks, making this procedural.

First few testing of the speed of cracks

First few testing of timing the cube hit the ground and how it cracks.

So What's Next?

Next time Peri is aiming to try something with fun 2D illustration animation - to push the brand and animation even further. This project is an internal project, also part of my training. So there are more creative license on this.