Zyn
STILL CAMPAIGN
This project was about creating mouth watering, ultra high-resolution CG imagery for the various flavors of the ZYN product line that could then be used by their markets globally. The concept was to place the various flavors in natural environments that would evoke the individual flavor’s essence without depicting real ingredients, but rather inspiration from nature - which added a fun creative challenge to how we visually described flavor, sensation, and strength. Along with each flavor, we created a toolkit of assets for global market localization needs. Each flavor was required to use the same placement of the product and camera angle. Each flavor asset incorporates a general diagonal flow inspired by the diagonal bar of the letter Z in ZYN, creating a natural flow. Depending on the flavor, we used one of three distinct CGI approaches: procedural, simulation based or direct sculpted.
Production Concept Development
What is Icy blackcurrant visually? How about Blueberry or Espressino? How would you depict these flavors without using any actual ingredients within the imagery? This was the task of our Look Development team. They created and tested various materials and looks until landing on a result that the viewer could infer vibrant ‘taste’ and energy and impact from the environment.
Before diving into 3D production, we explored references, in some cases generated styleframes, and had our design team work up layouts for discussion with the agency. Below is a collection of some of our initial pre-production sketches.
REFERENCES, CONCEPT PAINTING & SIMULATION RnD (Citrus)
Production Target Resolutions & Crops
One of the challenges of this project was the variety of target displays and layouts, which meant we needed to produce an extremely high-resolution output that focused on key areas, but also ensured the full image was appealing and that the copy/logo layout worked within each cropping. The closest crops would still require the ability to be printed at a high resolution and because of this, the product area needed to be rendered at 16K. (144 million pixels) The total resolution count for the entire image after retouch ended up at 43K (1.2 Billion Pixels)!
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3D Production Techniques
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The wide gamut of content and looks made this project exciting and allowed our team to use a wide range of 3d and CG skill sets and techniques.
Prcedural Compositions
For the intense natural formation compositions we used a procedural approach. Using a dynamic node-based workflow in Houdini, we could craft intricate and evolving scenes with unparalleled efficiency.
Infinite variations and fine-tuning are possible further into the pipeline with this approach allowing us to incorporate more and more details (like subsurface bubbles) or make changes to layouts more fluidly. The approach is a playground of endless possibilities requiring combining technical and artistic expertise.
Simulated Compositions
Some of the flavors involved layouts that were amorphous and without solid surfaces. For these we employed a simulation technique in order to land on a more natural composition.
For example, we created simulations in Houdini of swirling liquid that had the physical properties of coffee. We then selected a hero frame from those sequences and used that to fine tune into the hero imagery for ‘Espressino’. While less direct than sculpting, this method ensures that the shapes and formations within the composition are more natural.
Technical artists would test combinations of physical properties and select the recipe that gave them the most natural and desired result.
Direct Sculpted Compositions
These abstract sculptural environments required a different approach altogether. For these flavors, we leaned into our design frames and references as direct references for CG modelers to sculpt from. The simulation on these is minimal, to create the initial environments which will then be sculpted in Maya and zBrush as a static image / frame.
Photoshop Localisation Toolkit
Some of the flavors involved layouts that were amorphous and without solid surfaces. For these we employed a simulation technique in order to land on a more natural composition.
For example, we created simulations in Houdini of swirling liquid that had the physical properties of coffee. We then selected a hero frame from those sequences and used that to fine tune into the hero imagery for ‘Espressino’. While less direct than sculpting, this method ensures that the shapes and formations within the composition are more natural.
Technical artists would test combinations of physical properties and select the recipe that gave them the most natural and desired result.
Final Stills
Cool Mint: Animation
Bringing the Still To Life
One of the most exciting aspects of this job involved converting the hero still image of Cool Mint into an animation. Because the animation was at a completely different scale and the details required for a 4K output were so much less detailed, we adjusted the assets to allow for the construction of a dynamic animation that incorporated simulations for fracturing and particulate frost.