WEST HOLLYWOOD - Ring of Fire recently completed visual effects work on a spot promoting the new Lexus GS. Conceived by Team One advertising and director Marc Scholermann of Area 51, the :30 "Lombard" spot showcases the handling capabilies of the new GS as it negotiates the curves of the world's most crooked street - in the snow.
The studio created matte paintings as well as CG snow to match the practical snow that was used on location to make the San Francisco street slippery. Ring of Fire integrated the photoreal snow and pracitical snow using 3D tracking. They also modeled, textured, and lit wheel replacements and tracked and composited a navigation screen onto the monitor on the dashboard.
According to Ring of Fire producer, Justin Beaupre, Autodesk Inferno and Quantel Henry were used on the project. The studio scanned the car's wheel to create an exact replica in CG. 2D3's Boujou was used to track 3D snow elements into a moving shot and the 3D rim onto the moving vehicle. Alias Maya was used to create the wheel and the snow. Adobe Photoshop was used for the matte paintings.
John Myers served as executive producer for Ring of Fire. John Ciampa, Mark Robben, Thomas Downs, Paul Geiger and Clyde Beamer were Inferno artists. Brian Schneider and Lisa Tomei provided Henry services.
Scott Chestnut of Spot Welders cut the spot with Jeff Maynard assisting. The commercial features music and sound design by Music Forever.