Naturgy Ecoeasy

We had the pleasure to animate the last campaign for Naturgy Ecoeasy. Naturgy is a Spanish natural gas and electrical energy utilities company, which operates primarily in Spain.

The brief includes four animations, one with a generic message for the project and 3 three that highlights the main qualities of the Ecoeasy product.

Also, the client asks for a crayon illustration style with a top-end organic animation, these were the main challenges, considering the less time we had to animate the four pieces.

To accomplish with the client needs, we mixed different techniques like traditional, 2D and 3D animation, then treated the animation combining effects and some postproduction trick.

We've taken this project as an opportunity to improve skills, like 3D modelling, animate frame by frame using After Effects shapes and a new approach on using effects and texture to simulate illustrated look and feel. We always love learning new tools and find the most comfortable solution without reducing the quality of the final piece.

The whale animation was one of the most critical moment during the process, we started using puppet techniques, but the results were awful and less organic. So we have decided to work traditionally, but when the body shape was done, we have realized that was time-consuming considering the rest of the project we have to do.
Finally, we had an intuition that was using shapes and null controllers for the whale animation.

The leaves pass was developed using the C4D Spline Wrap for the big ones, and a particles system for sea stars, flowers and small leaves. After that, all were composed in different layers to add depth to the main composition.

These nice fellas were the second critical moment during the project because we need to give organicity to the group. So we created the rig for one fish, duplicated and applied a bunch of After Effects expression, and null controllers to add the correct point of randomness.

This solution avoided a lot of time on animating each fish independently with the chance to correct the animation and realize the colours and textures steps in a most comfortable way.

The method used for the shoal was the same used for the 20-sec fishes, the main difference was the number of elements, the movement following the main character and the position variation at the end.

So we had developed different animations, like turning, swimming and turn around, after that, we have applied the different setting conforming the main movement of the whole group. In the final part, we have animated each fish position and rotation to execute the action when fishes are pointing to the pig and when form the heart.

To add randomness to the shoal, we have used expression on each element, delayed the movements, add offsets and finally applied various colours tone to the fishes.

Credits

Client: Naturgy
Agency: Contrapunto BBDO
Project Manager: Eva Vázquez
Production: Pijama Studio
Illustration: Jaume Osman granda
Animation Direction: Frame Light Studio
Animation: Andrea Gendusa, Jaume Osman Granda , Victor Péréz