This is an animation I did for Baylor Foundation for Memorial Day. Every year Baylor Foundation produces very well-designed and often complicated and intricate physical Memorial Day cards that they mail out to donors. They also usually have me produce an animated version of those cards that they send out via email to donors and supporters.
This year’s card featured a flag flying over a military cemetery with stirring words from the Foundation’s President. I suggested the piece could have more impact if we replaced the still flag from their original art with a photo-realistic 3D flag billowing in the wind. They liked the idea.
I’ve been learning more about a powerful open source 3D application called Blender, and decided that it would be perfect for this project, and it was. I used the cloth simulator and a wind force field to get the motion and the look of the flag just as I saw it in my mind’s eye. Fun stuff!
I used Photoshop and Illustrator to isolate the lanyards, flag pole, and cemetery from the original print file so I could run the flag up and down the flag pole realistically. I then composited and animated everything together with a stirring background music track, in After Effects. The piece came out very well.
In fact, my contact at the Foundation, after seeing the piece for the first time said:
“It is more perfect that I could have imagined!!!!”
Very gratifying to get feedback like that. They didn’t make a single revision.
Click the image above to watch the video.