Inhouse: ‘Pin Art’ – music video visual effects

Concept design, 3d modelling, 3d animation, visual effects, compositing, editing

Produced inhouse as a showpiece visual effects sequence, James designed, directed, animated and composited this short music video. The video starts with a pin box executive desk toy coming to life in sequence to the music.

The pin box 3d model was animated using a depth map. The depth map was a 2D animation of shapes, black grey and white. The pins were then set up to push out further where the map was white, and stay pushed in where the map was black. The varying tone of grey in between dictated how much the pins should pop out.

To get accurate scene lighting, James captured a HDRI probe and used this for IBL (image based lighting) for a more photorealistic result. The 3D animation was composited and then edited in After Effects.

Software used: 3DS Max, PfTrack, Fusion, Photoshop