Mini Countryman

[nas]

This was an ad intended for our local television for the Mini Countryman launch in South Africa.


The ad had already been shot overseas but to promote the car here we needed to show off the two selling points: The ALL4 wheel drive and the four doors opening.... We needed to add in a shot to the original that would show these features but also seamlessly flow with the original ad.

The initial brief was not final as to how we would achieve this but work had to be done as far as having a car to render. Knowing that we only had a week to deliver a finished car complete with a detailed interior and animation a decision was made to buy a model(3dexport.com, great quality models) instead of modeling one from scratch. This saved precious time that allowed us to concentrate on other wishlist areas. The interior needed a major overhaul as the purchased model's interior was mid-poly and different to the new model(was actually the CooperS's interior). A few minor tweaks on the headlight geometry was needed to but overall we were very well on track...

The decision was made to slot in a shot right in the beginning of the ad that showed the car with all 4 doors open, having them close and drive away into the rest of the ad. We proceeded to block out the sequence... All along we said we would be able to do this from extracting a clean plate from the existing footage to integrate into a new shot with the cg car. At the same time depending on how the schedule was progressing, if we were not able to
get a clean plate from the footage we would slot in the shot at the end as a studio shot as a last resort...

Fortunately a gap in one my colleague's schedule's opened up and she was able to work on cleaning up the Backplate while i worked on the interior modeling, rigging and animation. The final go ahead was given on the shot in the beginning and not a studio at the end...However the client requested that we have the studio shot at the end instead. After throwing together a very quick wip of the studio the decision was reverted to the original idea, so all was well...

The complete sequence was supplied as well as the extra studio shots just in case... It was a very tight deadline in the end from receiving the brief to delivery(8 days), but gratifying in the sense that it all went very smoothly...

These are still images that were made the day after the project, i thought it would be a waste not to render them after the work had already been done...


You can find the full ad here: http://luma.co.za/#781891/Mini-Countryman-Flow
Additional images here: http://nasg85.deviantart.com/
Made in Softimage2011, AE

Thanks for reading, Any crits and comments are welcome!

(Moderator edit - for old time's sake: URL tags, URL tags, URL tags)

[shadow_ex_]

awasome work

[Hirazi Blue]

Any stills from the car "in the wild"? Like in the finished ad, I mean...
Personally I do not like the clean studio setup, but that's just me, I guess.
Terrific work nonetheless.

[nas]

Her's a still from the ad:

[Maximus]

Hello, i dont really like the shading here, the studio setup is also a bit odd.
Shading make the car seems like a toy, main red isnt really a car paint is it? The reflections on it are also too strong (speaking about the white ones, especially in the side picture) with a blurry effect that doesnt suit at all.
I also find the comp in the backplate (i think a HDRI) a bit poor, shadows are overkill, too dark. and bg is too blurred without depth from point of view.

[nas]

Hey Maximus, Thanks for the crit! Yes i agree that the studio shot reflections are a bit too strong and there are areas that need improvement. As for the outdoor shot wouldve loved to have had another day on it to tweak some things but everytime i tried to get ahead of the schedule they'd cut another day off of it! There's not much that could've been done to sharpen up the bgd as we had to salvage it from existing footage - the original was an aggressive panning shot. As for the shadow i had to match the original ad so i didn't have much freedom there... Oh if i had just one more day:(

[Maximus]

its still a good work, dont get me wrong, thought some crits would help you !
/cheers!!

[nas]

Thanks, I'm always open to constructive criticism.

[Werner]

Well done Nas! We all know how time can cut into getting the best result. If only clients saw it this way.

[irakli_san]

really like the look! great work. cheers!