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The Client

Meld Media offers motion graphics design and direction with a focus on the interactive space. From concept to final production, Meld’s experience in design, live-action, animation and interactive design can get anything moving.

The Problem

Meld Media was building an interactive 3D website for Lexus to showcase the Lexus 2010 RX350. The interactive 3D website would feature 3D car animation in different environments such as daytime, nighttime and visual effects of rain. Meld Media was looking for a 3D animation studio that understood the technical demands of transferring a 3D car model from Autodesk AutoCAD to Autodesk 3ds Max. 

Working with a car manufacturer presents challenges;

• importing a 3D car model from Autodesk AutoCAD and reducing the high polygon count.
• optimizing the 3D car model so that it can be rendered using VRay car rendering techniques.
• producing visual effects to represent the different environmental conditions that Lexus 2010 RX350 car will be shown in.
• creating visual effects of rain impact on the car surface and windows

The Solution

ThinkingMedia began by programming custom MaxScript macros that imported the 3D car model from Autodesk AutoCAD into Autodesk 3ds Max. These MaxScript macros then cleaned the surfaces of any artifacts and reduced data complexity so that 3D artists could effectively work with the data. We also created additional MaxScript macros that controlled the Material Editor to reproduce manufacture materials using custom VRay materials and VRay car paint materials.

Photorealistic rendering was achieved by creating a studio lighting setup that reproduced realistic results using VRay car rendering techniques.

The interactive 3D website included buttons that allowed visitors to change weather conditions. To simulate different weather conditions ThinkingMedia programmed a custom MaxScript macro that was used by Particle Studio to calculate the intersection point of a drop of rain and the surface of the 3D car model. Upon impact of the rain drop with the hard body of the car additional particles were spawned to create the effect of rain splashing upon impact.

Using a file sharing schema and naming convention allowed ThinkingMedia to work remotely with Meld Media sharing assets in a productive manner. Both companies worked together as partners to complete the project on time without any collision of work between the two different teams working on the project.

Why ThinkingMedia?

ThinkingMedia has experience working with 3D car animation projects. The cleaning of 3D car model data from Autodesk AutoCAD software presents a number of challenges such as file format conversion, polygon reduction, cleaning surface artifacts and recreating the manufacturer's specified materials. We take the prepared 3D car model into Autodesk 3ds Max, apply car rigging for tire rotation and suspension, create a photo-realistic lighting solution using VRay car paint and render 3D car animation sequences using our in-house render farm.

The Website

Lexus - 2010 RX350