In this Case Study I focus on my work for Montel Williams and his "Living Well with Montel" brand which was the "Microwave Grill Cooker" and the "Emulsifier Blender". I'd like to focus on just the "Microwave Grill Cooker" as its process was beyond my normal expertise and I feel I grew as a 3D artist after it was finished. For most of my work I mainly focus on photo realism 3D models with small bits of animation, but this project required more animation than I was used to as well as VFX which is really only a hobby of mine. With that being said I was up for the challenge and even though I succeeded, the road was not a smooth path. The biggest challenge for me was making the food transition from uncooked to cooked with just images and then animating the "heat" arrows so they lined up with the client's expectations. I've never used a real photo of food layered onto a 3D model without creating my own textures before, but due to the budget of the project it was my only option. I ran into quite a few issues but at the right angle with the right stretching and a bit of Photoshop magic on the texture, it lined up with the expectations and the client was thrilled. As for the "heat" arrows, those took about 7 or 8 iterations. I took a 3D approach to the arrows and the client was very unsure of how it would fully embody what the message of the arrows were. After going back and forth with low resolution arrow render examples we found the perfect approach. In the end I feel my back and forth with the client really helped with nailing this project.

 

Below is the full animation of the Microwave Grill Cooker as well as a clip of it on HSN.