3D Animation of Industrial Washing Machine
Business Challenge
Development of 3D animation of industrial washing machine
Our Solution
The customer is a big industrial manufacturer of washing systems and machines from Germany. Creation of a movie that will feature the washing process and the model of the industrial washing machine. The model was created based on the real-life photos and industrial models of the machine and recreated the work of the chamber washing process. 3D technology artists from Chudovo took the STL file and recreated the industrial model from it to the Blender compatible format, a 3D model ready for 3D animation and video creation. After that, we followed the instructions, got acquainted with the work of washing machines, and created the whole cycle of chamber washing of machine parts. We simulated the “flooding” process of the washing process and chamber rotation. During the flooding, there was shown the parts that are washing in the chamber and slow rotations of the chamber. This allows parts to be cleaned from the debris and dirt effectively. The main challenging part of the project – land the release of at least one English version in time for a trade fair. The first version of the video landed in 3 weeks and helped to present the washing machine at the trade fair with great success. The customer attracted new eyes on the product and the sales of the washing machine rose after that presentation. After that, the artist updated the visuals on the English version and prepared German and Russian versions, and successfully finished the project.
The important note that needs to be addressed in such kinds of projects – how the parts and materials should be represented. It is important to highlight not only the proper work of the whole machine but also materials of which parts of the washing machine consists. It’s important to correctly represent all the materials and colors of parts. There are a few ways to ensure that. The chosen option was to import and recreate in Blender all the materials used in the original STL file and provide the animation in Blender. The unfortunate part – all colors were lost in export. The solution that needed to be taken – recreate the colors based on some descriptions of STL models and real-life photos and animate them in Blender, creating a Blender 3D animation. This took a while, but that was the correct way in perspective with the correct use of 3D technologies and 3D animation services.
The time constraints were quite tight. Usually, the creation of industrial video takes a while, at minimum a month and a half for a first draft. We needed to land a real working version before the trade fair in three weeks’ time after we started work on the project. It was the set goal and part of the agreement, and it was achieved. The key parts of such a quick turnaround – excellent communication with the client, strict deliverables, operative work on the details. The required photos and files were provided quickly and due to direct communication with the engineers that worked on the washing machine there was clarity on the parts and processes that were important to highlight and how exactly, so it was easy to recreate with Blender animation. The 3D animation was on top and didn’t require any fixes or changes. Thanks to that the English version of the video animation was delivered in time for the trade fair and was a great success.