Bringing The Heat

byChristopher Kennedy
3 years ago

Launching the New Re Verber Ray Series

The All New REV Series

The Detroit Radiant Company is a third-generation, family-owned company that has been a leader in the heating industry for over 65 years. From their first heater to the more than 40 products since then, their dedication to manufacturing innovative, high-quality, and energy-efficient infrared heaters has been at the forefront of everything they do.

Product Demo (3D Animation)

The Detroit Radiant Company engaged MadWerkz with an opportunity to produce an animation that would complement the launch of their new REV Series radiant heater product. The animation needed to serve two purposes. It needed the flexibility to be used as needed in their corporate promotional video but also serve as a stand-alone that would have an accompanying voice-over.

To accomplish this, communications manager Sarah Pyne worked closely alongside MadWerkz to bring their vision to life.

It was established early that the final animation would be sent to Sarah’s in-house editing team where they would take over putting together the final video. Since this was the case, it was decided that the final animation would be broken down into individual shots for editing convenience.

REV Series Animation - Shot 5a Final — Still shot of the multiple ultra wide configuration.

“We were looking to get the finished animation to our video team within 1-2 weeks to meet our trade show deadline. MadWerkz delivered!”
Sarah Pyne, Detroit Radiant Company Communications Manager

REV Series Animation - Shot 4 Final — Still shot of the heated arrow simulation for the combustion air feature.

Our workflow began once we received the SolidWorks product model from the client. From there, project supervisor Chris Kennedy imported the product model into Autodesk Maya where he converted the entire model from NURBS into polygons and cleaned up model UVs. After that, the model was sent to our look/dev texture artists led by MadWerkz founder, Joddy Eric Matthews. His team used product reference photos to produce a photorealistic look using Arnold shaders.

After the look was approved, it was our animator’s turn next to take the client’s storyboard, interpret the clients’ vision and set up the animation to be cinematic, yet give the client what they were looking for.

“After seeing their storyboard, we understood that the key here was to focus on the shots that highlighted the product’s heating features. So we locked in on that.”
Chris Kennedy, MadWerkz

Once the animation was keyframed, animator Jason Mitchell put the finishing touches on the product demo before we sent over pre-vis shots and rendered stills for approval. Once approval was met, MadWerkz sent the product off to the render farm.

REV Series Animation - Shot 6a Final — Still shot of the thermal heating simulation that showcased the difference in heating coverage between the different configurations.

The final step after getting the finished renders back from the renderfarm was to add in the thermal heating simulation and motion graphics. To achieve this, our team imported the finished renders into After Effects where they layered multiple visual effects. To produce the radiant heated effects, we used glowing motion arrow graphics along with a heat air distortion simulation to showcase how the product distributes and directs heated air.

Once the client was satisfied, MadWerkz delivered the final shots to Sarah for her editorial department.

To check out Re Verber, click here: Re Verber Ray – REV Series Promotional Video