This is the second of two station ID tags created at Hatch Studios Ltd. for Astral’s “Z-Tele” channel.

In this second installment, we follow an assembly line from start to finish, showing the Z-Tele sphere being formed. Like the first cinematic, the robotic arms, claws & pulleys act as our catalyst to move us through various industrial environments, all of which change throughout the cinematic in combination with the developing logo.

In this cinematic, I also played with the state of various environments in order to create an increasing contrast between grungy and clinical settings. This becomes evident as we start on a grimy scrap yard and end up in a spotless, laboratory room. The final environmental change is defined by the electrical current fired into the sphere.

It should be mentioned that we had a great time working on this cinematic, partly due to the great guys at Astral who loved this as much as we did.

Like our first cinematic, this was another heavy effects-driven sequence that required a variety of specialized tools be produced. Smoke, fire and gasses called for the used of FumeFX, Particle Flow and Krakatoa.

The props were modeled with 3dsmax, the fire / smoke with FumeFX and the particle effects with Krakatoa as well as Particle Flow. Additional smoke and mist passes were created during the compositing stage. Rendering with VRay 1.5 SP2.