Red Bull Omiya Animations

Red Bull being Red Bull called us and said they’re taking over a Football Club. Pretty standard procedure for them. This time, out in Tokyo Japan, Omiya Adija in 2nd Division J League. They asked us if we could create some hype around the new Red Bull branded Crest reveal. What an honour – being asked to produce animated/motion graphic content in what many consider the land of animation. Not only this but with their taste for animation not satiated we were back again for the Jersey launch.

And then again for the Stadium screens! 

You get the gist..

Crest Reveal

The crest reveal came with a blinding turnaround just shy of a month. Red Bull having provided us with the boards, our mission was to transform these concepts into a stunning 3D animation, set to be broadcast across millions of screens across Japan.

Environments

After finalising the animatic and awaiting assets from RB, we knuckled down on R&D, developing an environment to house the crest. As the original concept was simply a blue void, we explored how to incorporate elements of Omiya’s local architecture and football grounds into an engaging space using Cinema 4D. The outcome, a concrete dojo entirely saturated with Red Bull blue. This concept quickly took root and even ended up inspiring the final display for the jersey reveal event.

Bulls Animation

Animating a stampede of bulls along a ribbon to a tight deadline is a tall order. Thankfully, Red Bull supplied us with a collection of C4D files that included the bulls and their pre-existing stampede animation.

Mild snag being all the files had the animation baked into the models, this meant any bespoke movements could only be achieved with subtle frame manipulation via xpresso to cheat an agitated bull into a more docile state, utilising loop points wherever possible.

Jersey Reveal

Kit launches generate significant hype, and after the success of the crest reveal, Red Bull brought us back to build on the previous animation by incorporating the new jersey asset for the launch event. The event itself took place in Omiya to a crowd of fans and officials, projected across two displays resulting in one ultra-large screen. In a very low-tech manner, two concealed technicians would slide the screen apart to reveal a collage of displays, with the crest flag waving in a seamless loop.

Grizzle veteran Tom C took the helm in simulating multiple threads weaving through the fabric of the jersey, following a dynamic crash zoom through one shoulder and emerging from the other. The idea was that the orange ribbon featured flying through Omiya would split into threads becoming part of the very fabric of the new jersey.

Working with such high fidelity materials, we were able to get incredibly close to the jersey. However, large renders can result in slower renders. In order to hit a very tight deadline for the live launch of the jersey, we utilised Topaz Labs to upscale and denoise 1080px image sequences all the way up to glorious 4k. It took a fraction of the time despite minor issues with motion blur and material softness. After the fact, we were able to render in full 4k to be able to incorporate into the web videos that were posted after the event with a less tight deadline. 

Stadium Assets

The project that really kept on giving! Straight off the back of the Jersey reveal we were in for more Omiya, including but not limited to over 30 player Intros and bespoke goal animations, over 60 deliverables in all.

The result? A staggering success, thanks to some long hours and a robust team of talented artists, all the events went down a treat. Not only that but RB Omiya won its first match in front of a new record 13k people, 2:1 on a 97th minute corner!