ABSTRACT GARMIN INTERFACE IN 3D SPACE
The circuitry shot previous to this was created by Artist Steve Wilson. I seamlessly transitioned from that shot to this 3D abstract shot of the Garmin G5000 interface. We elected to abstract the interface for stylistic reasons. I took the prominent elements of the actual interface, and gave them a dimensional/holographic treatment. You can see the actual interface below.
ACTUAL GARMIN INTERFACE
While the real interface is full of useful information, it didn't really fit the style of the video. That said, this system is very important to the technological narrative of the Citation Ascend, so we dolled it up a bit.
FLAT FLOOR SILK TRANSITION
The next bit of trickery that I provided was in the form of a transition. Textron wanted to seamlessly transition from the previous practical shot of flowing silk, to a sweeping CGI shot of the flat floor. Artist Terry Millspaw did a great job of doing the 3D render for the aisle. I took Terry's shot and dissected it in After Effects. With a bit of blending and morphing, I was able to seamlessly transition from silk to cabin.
FIRST STEP, ROTO
For the transition, I wanted to have the seats slide in from off-camera. I also needed the seats out of the way to create the transition from silk to carpet. So the first step was to roto the seats. I know what you are thinking... Why didn't he have Terry render mattes for the seats? Well, we had other shots rendering that were priority. It turns out a quick roto was faster than waiting for the render. This transition was originally going to be on the editor to do, but a simple cross-fade wasn't cutting the mustard.
MIGHTY MORPHING
The key to a good morph is leaning the two elements toward each other. In this case, I tinted the carpet to match the silk at the start of the morph. Additionally, I warped the carpet layer to match the undulations in the silk. The rest was a well-timed fade between the two, and subtly tapering off the color treatment as the transition resolves to the carpet.
ABSTRACT WINDOW REVERB
This is the animated version of one of the campaign teaser images. Basically we wanted to take the lighted window surround from the cabin and have it emit figurative sound waves. It's an abstract way of highlighting the quiet cabin and the window simultaneously.
THE POWER OF GEOMETRY NODES
This undulating wave is spawned from converting the profile edge of the window frame into a curve and then instancing that curve perpetually, with it growing outward over time. As it travels through 3D space, it is distorted by noise. And because it's geometry nodes, you can keyframe just about everything. That made it easy to work with.
AIR-TO-AIR IMAGES
These were a bit more straightforward. I just imported the plane parts from CAD and cleaned up the geometry. The rest was shader node work in Blender, and lighting the aircraft to match the backplate. The above image is one angle of the action. The other is below.
AIR-TO-AIR IMAGES
This was the second air-to-air teaser image. If you're curious, I've included a screenshot of how the scene is constructed below.
THE BLENDER SCENE
See, what did I tell you... Pretty simple!