The goal of this project was to create a high-impact animation for events that could be repackaged for other locales with minimal additional effort, inspired from ESPN graphics packages. This led to the decision to have a focal piece 3D asset (in this instance, Singapore’s Merlion) that assembles from particles. Additional animations would be created by dropping a new model onto the platform and changing the particle colors to match each locality.

This was built and rendered in Blender with Cycles render engine. The glass particles and texture of the scene was vitally important and that drove the decision to use the slower path tracing render method. I really wanted the color to bounce around the scene and show through and refract in the wireframe so most materials, especially the hero materials were custom made.

For the statue itself, I created a Blender Geometry Nodes system that blends between a generated wireframe of the object and a solid extruded version, this means the focal point of most shots is manipulated by a single control object scaling and moving slowly and could quickly be adapted to other models. The particles are also a custom geometry node setup to allow quick routing around desired positions with curves.

This took just over one week from concept to final.