<- Back to projects Motion & 3D — making of
Motion & 3D — making of

from spline to THE POINT.

How the opening film of this portfolio was made: from a traced curve to a photoreal dart that hits the board. Concept, 3D, lighting, edit and sound design.

RoleConcept, art direction, 3D, edit and sound design ToolsCinema 4D, Redshift, Premiere Pro FormatBrand film, about 45 seconds
The full film, about 45 seconds. Best with sound on.
Text description of the film

The film has no speech, only music and sound effects. A pencil sketch of a dart and a dartboard on light grey turns into a wireframe board and then into a photoreal dartboard. Close-ups show the steel tip of the dart, then the word “focus.” appears on black. The dart with red flights flies towards the board and hits the bullseye, which glows red like embers. The film ends with the title “from spline to THE POINT.”, with the red dot completing the last word.

01Concept

Concept and art direction

One idea: from the technical grid to the photoreal detail.

The brand’s flagship piece is built on a “quiet luxury” aesthetic and strict Swiss typography. Its visual axis is the transition “from spline to THE POINT”: from the technical grid (wireframe) to the photoreal detail, which symbolises the technical design process.

Wireframe of the dart and the dartboard on black
Wireframe
The finished render: the photoreal dart and dartboard in the same composition as the wireframe
Photoreal detail
02Cinema 4D

Modelling and construction

Everything built at real-world scale, from a traced curve to a finished dart.

Pencil sketch of the dart and the dartboard, fully drawn with all numbers
  • Scale: The whole scene was built strictly to real-world scale.
  • Dart: The geometry started as a precisely traced curve (spline) based on a reference photo, which then became a 3D body with the Lathe object.
  • Board: Built from scratch out of primitives. The numbers of the scoring fields were made with the text tool.
03Cinema 4D

3D logic, dynamics and mechanics

The reveal, the impact and the smoke trail run on Vertex Maps, fields and simulation.

The tip of the dart hits the bullseye, the red centre glows and smoke rises
  • Reveal: The photoreal geometry is uncovered on the board only. It is driven by an integrated Vertex Map system and an animated, spatial cylinder field.
  • Impact: When the dart hits, the board is destroyed dynamically: Vertex Maps and displacement deform the surface, while the texture shifts smoothly from base red through flaming orange to charred black at the edges.
  • Flight and sparks: A particle system and a pyro simulation enrich flight and impact. The sparks (optimised spheres) pull a trail of smoke behind them. In the flight phase the temperature is deliberately switched off in the pyro module, so only smoke is produced.
04Redshift

Custom materials and rendering

Every shader built from scratch. The light is separated from the atmosphere and bounced in from outside the frame.

Close-up of the metal barrel and the tip of the dart
  • Shaders: All shaders were built from scratch. Saved selections isolate individual polygon groups: the grooves on the barrel got a separate metallic material, and the scoring fields on the board were coloured the same way.
  • Barrel: The texture is enriched with a stock texture mask combined with bump and displacement maps.
  • Coating: The rest of the coating imitates fine car paint, with flake and glitter layers for exclusive, pinpoint light reflections. The board got a bump map that simulates micro-damage from earlier throws.
  • Glowing tip: During the flight the tip heats up, thanks to a precisely animated gradient combined with the emission channel.
  • Lighting: The main HDRI is separated from the atmosphere (Volume Contribution set to 0). Outside the frame, a black disc object with maximum reflection acts as a hidden reflector and bounces the light in elegantly from below.
  • Red glow: The red, volumetric glow of the point in “THE POINT.” comes from a spherical, hidden RS area light.
  • Camera: Realism comes from shallow depth of field, the post effects bloom and glare, and physical motion blur.
05Premiere Pro

Edit and sound design

Cuts locked to the beat, a tension-building pause and a sound bed made of organic details.

Title card: from spline to THE POINT., with a glowing red dot
  • Cuts: The edit follows a rigorous tempo. Important cuts are synced to the hits of the electronic beat.
  • The pause: The tension-building pause is filled by the word “focus.”, set with generous tracking and faded in with a soft cross dissolve.
  • Sound: The audio layer is built from organic details: deep sub-bass and noise (soft whoosh), matched to the dynamics of the flight.

Next to the film work, the Wohnraum-Retter case study shows my UX/UI process from research to prototype.

Read the Wohnraum-Retter case study <- Back to projects