I remember which this advert ages ago but have recently stumbled on it again. It is one of those magically advert ACTUALLY worth watching! The animation, artwork, direction and music is brilliantly done. The style of the animation is (almost) unique, sporting the “painted or illustration” look.

So, when I was watching it again, I wondered how they made that animation. Was it 2D or 3D animation. To my surprise it was in fact 3D animation (mostly) but with clever post-production to make it look like a series of painted stills. You can see the making of the advert here.

The technique developed by this animation studio was very clever and yield excellent results. Although the video doesn’t go into too much detail about the actual techniques of giving it a painted look, it does give us some clues. It seems to be a standard 3D animation workflow but with unusual shaders that will be enhance at post production using filters. Another important step is lower the frame rate to give that “slow motion/painting” feel.

When I have time, I will try to figure this out and create an easier and quicker (but a lesser version) of this technique to see if I can use this style in my work. The aim is to create something similar but doesn’t require loads of 3D and 2D animators to implement! When I have this figured out, I will create a blog of it.