Christmas video ad

I made this animation for Marina Rinaldi through the ADV company Aryel.
The team consisted of myself and another 3D artist, both juggling script, storyboarding, modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, lighting and rendering.
This was a big undertaking for such a small team with a relatively tight deadline (less than 3 months from script to product).
That said, it was infinitely fun to work on and to iterate until we got the best results - also gave me the opportunity to play with tools such as pinning and lattices to achieve stylized fabric deformation.

DISCLAIMER: we briefly used generative AI at the lighting stage to visualize our rough renders against possible improvements based on our selected references.
We took note of what would work (i.e. adding fill and rim lights, a warmer tone, pointers for the color grading) rather than having AI lead posing and scene setup.
No generative AI has been used in the final product.

Texturing in Substance Painter
Custom materials in Substance Designer
Modeling, Rigging, Lighting, Animation, Rendering in Blender
Post production and editing in After Effects
Credits to the other 3D Artist, Nicola Roletti
Courtesy of Marina Rinaldi and Aryel