This project was a Siggraph 2007 showcase demo produced for Autodesk Media & Entertainment (M&E) at Hatch Studios Ltd.

The premise was to create a sophisticated menu system symbolizing Autodesk’s various M&E market and product lines. The demo features three main sections: Film, Design, and Games, each of which was intercut with client footage.

Each market section (and associated sphere) is represented through deviated color grading (Red, Blue, then Green). The main menu therefore contains a neutral grading with splashes of all three colors carefully dispersed throughout. The use of color graded treatments helps keep consistency from section to section and holds the piece together quite nicely.

The video shown here contains only the 3D work, without the client footage since permission would have been required from each contributor. In addition, the typography has also been removed. As a result, some props such as the video monitors may appear untextured when in fact they have the client footage playing within.

This project was rendered at half HD so although rendertimes were not terrible, they were still extremely long. Typical 960×540 frames averaged between 2-3 hours using high resolution models, 3D motion blur and global illumination lighting features combined with area lights and image-based lighting.

The project was modeled, animated and textured in 3dsmax 8.0. It was rendered with VRay 1.5 RC3 and composited using After Effects. The depth of field was produced using DOF PRO plugin. It was onlined on an Inferno.