Making Blazing Dragonfly

Credits & Description:

The principals of the international award-winning next-generation creative studio Transparent House (TH, www.transparenthouse.com) are very proud to announce the debut of a mesmerizing new :17 CG television spot for Blazing Dragonfly Vodka. Blazing Dragonfly is an imaginary brand, conceived by studio principal and co-founder Denis Krylov, principal/strategist Krista Mollion and their colleagues as a platform for colorfully presenting their company's creative and production capabilities.
International Next-Generation Creative Studio Transparent House Releases All-CG Commercial for Imaginary Vodka Brand Blazing Dragonfly

SAN FRANCISCO, MOSCOW and BERLIN -- (Sep. 5, 2012) -- The principals of the international award-winning next-generation creative studio Transparent House (TH, www.transparenthouse.com) are very proud to announce the debut of a mesmerizing new :17 CG television spot for Blazing Dragonfly Vodka. Blazing Dragonfly is an imaginary brand, conceived by studio principal and co-founder Denis Krylov, principal/strategist Krista Mollion and their colleagues as a platform for colorfully presenting their company's creative and production capabilities.

Based in San Francisco and specializing in the creation of stunning 3D assets, TH also operates full-service studios in Moscow and Berlin, allowing them to offer both creative development and production services around the clock. Widely recognized in the world of high-end architecture for their painstaking visualizations, including their work on the Van Zandt Hotel Penthouse project for San Franciso's Hornberger + Worstell that was named the Best Image in the 2008 international Architectural 3D Awards, TH also does extremely impressive branding/advertising visualization work for many of the world's top consumer brands, industrial design firms and agencies.

"When it comes to telling our story to the world," Mollion explained, "we are often limited by non-disclosure agreements that forbid us from sharing many of our most prestigious and impressive projects. So, we decided to come up with a concept for a fake brand to show our capabilities in creative solutions. We wanted to make it short and entertaining, while trying to keep viewers' attentions on our very elaborate 3D animation work."

"The project started with the idea of creating a series of commercials highlighting innovative brands that can use digital technology to their advantage," Krylov began. "We decided on the dragonfly concept because it is a very sophisticated 3D object that requires advanced technical skill to build, which makes it perfect for demonstrating the CG capabilities of Transparent House."

Working across the international TH studio network, artists used Autodesk 3Ds Max to model and animate the dragonfly, beginning with a low-poly draft model and then adding more detail. FumeFX was used for fire simulation, and the animation was rendered using Chaos Group's V-Ray. That output was composited together in Adobe After Effects, CG particles were generated with Trapcode Particular, and final color was also handled in the TH studios using After Effects.

"As with any creative modeling project, the challenge was to create something impressive without using a lot of man and computer power," Krylov added. "Two artists worked on it for about two weeks, where both did the modeling, rendering and all the visual effects. Much of their time was spent on modeling all the details in order to achieve and realistically present the dragonfly's natural anatomy. The textures were also a challenge, of course, but this is one of the things we are known for: hyper-realism."

Two more unique aspects of TH's operations in San Francisco are its affiliated full-service video and photo studio named Transparent Space (www.transparentspace.com) as well as its contemporary art gallery named 472 Gallery SF (www.472gallery.com). Transparent Space is available for bookings 24/7 throughout the year, and 472 Gallery SF presents the works of various fine artists who have come to the attention of TH's principals.

The finished "Blazing Dragonfly" project can now be seen on TH's website and its social media channels, along with a brief but detailed "Making Of" presentation. The project and its materials will also be featured within 472 Gallery SF through the end of September.