In February, I got a text from Klaas, Art Director over at The Viewmasters, with the question if I could look at one of his proposals for a VIP Spot on Talpa's NET5.
Briefing
He had set up a storyboard and an animatic, to link the channel's logo design into a commercial for the shampoo brand, Guhl.
The biggest question to answer right away is if it was possible to art direct the splash of the water in the two-day timeframe.
Taking on a project, I want to make sure that I can deliver it within the set budget and timeline, so I got back to him and said I would first check what options would work best for this project.
Research process
The default option of the last couple of years has been the standalone version of Realflow. Still, as I prefer to work natively in Cinema 4D, I took a couple of minutes to explore my other options.
I created a quick animatic with Houdini, with the crown splash shelf tool, although I'm not the biggest fan of the workflow of the program.
X-Particles
That's when I updated my X-Particles for the first time in ages and discovered that they had added a robust crown splash toolset. As I'm a big fan of the full suite of tools with X-Particles, that's the road I chose.
So I got back to Klaas and gave him the go on the timeline and proposed budget, and in two days, we had this finished product to go live the next Sunday on the Dutch broadcast channel NET5.
Deliverables
For this project, I work on the first two scenes, creating all the CGI elements. At the same time, The Viewmasters did the 2D Animation at the start and directed the sound design.