Stink Studios: WeWork up a stink with character animation

Commissioned by WeWork, the pioneers of changing the workplace over the past decade, our client Stink Studios were creating an advertising campaign including more than 3,000 animations and illustrations.

The issue

Inspired by architectural plans, Stink Studios creative team had adapted real 3D models of actual WeWork spaces and captured all the necessary movements workers would do in day to day collaborative office life. But how could they capture realistic and nuanced character animation to populate them?

The solution

Target3D consulted with Stink Studios on the character creation process and managed the capturing and cleaning of the motion capture data, which took place at StudioT3D in Hoxton and involved rigged mocap models from the inhouse Talent Pool.

A unique challenge to this project was mimicking the furniture used in the Cinema4D scene, creating the need to source specific seating height furniture that was ‘mocap friendly’, as well as various props that helped achieve the same result of a working environment. Trouble-shooting meetings between the client and the studio were also used to ensure the correct pipeline from Motionbuilder through Maya to Cinema4D.

The stage was set up with a 32 Optical camera system (30 OptiTrack 17W’s, plus a couple of reference cameras), specifically set to accommodate the furniture and prop interactions.

Following the shoot, the team at Target3D processed the cleaned data onto the 3D characters to integrate the animated characters into the space. Target3d’s lead animator was able to re-target the rig using the raw mocap markers instead of the skeleton onto a layered skeleton that was then used as reference to match the original skeletal data.

The result

Stink Studios unique 3D animated advertising campaign that was adaptable depending on the size of business WeWork were targeting. For example, they could show a five-person deskspace for a young start-up or an entire office floor for a big PLC company. The campaign spanned 12 languages, 18 countries, and over 3,000 assets in total.

Bring your next campaign to life with motion capture by speaking to Target3D, the home of motion capture.

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