The Future of 3D Animation?

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
3Dwalkthroughs.com was introduced to an interesting 3D animation concept on The Future of Marketing Real Estate website. The animation, titled World Builder and created by Bruce Branit, tells the story of a man who builds a 3D virtual world for the woman he loves using a tool that looks to be a mashup of Google Sketchup and the interface seen in Minority Report.

Source: The Future of Marketing Real Estate website

The story starts with a man sitting on his back while flipping through a virtual photo gallery of him and his girlfriend. As the man stands up, he sets a digital clock on his watch for an hour and starts to work on building his 3D world.

The amazing 3D world and all of its fine details seem to appear simply with a touch of the mans hand and his imagination. Once the man is satisfied with his creation, he finishes up by dialing up the right level of sunlight/shadows to meet his approval. (he also leaves behind a flower)

The girlfriend soon enters the picture, explores the world and sees the flower that the man has created and left for her to find. After smelling the flower she gets up to leave yet turns around one last time seemingly disappointed that she has not seen the man.

After the girl leaves, the 3D environment dissolves into thin air. The story transitions into what appears to be the girl in a coma at a hospital.

It turns out the woman is in a holograph recovery unit where her memories can be brought back to life.

According to the blog post, the 8 and a half minute 3D animation took 2 years to complete. While this time frame would probably not work even for our most laid back clients, the seamless integration of animation and actual video was quite amazing. It is getting more common for video to be integrated into these types of presentations, but not where the video objects are actually interacting with 3D animated objects.

It is definitely worth the investment of time if you are interested in 3D animation.