Virtual Product Launch Animation: Elara Energizes Product Launch for Alcon

Elara is an agency known for creating clinically accurate medical device, realistic industrial and pharmaceutical animations. Occasionally we have the opportunity to show that the design team at Elara can produce dramatic visual effects as well. One such project was for Alcon (a Novartis Company) who commissioned Elara to create a high energy ‘pop’ piece for use at a product launch event.

For Alcon’s high impact animation called “Alcon: Transformation”, the client approached us with a vision of a mysterious asteroid that comes from deep space and crashes to the earth, delivering the next generation of custom topography guided LASIK (Be sure to also check out our LASIK Animation post).

Elara employs a number of x-pats from the film, television and special effects fields that jumped at the opportunity to blow up an asteroid. Using a myriad of visual effect techniques, software and plugins, Elara was able to nimbly navigate the VFX pipeline. As with everything we do, a great animation begins with reference, storyboards and pre-viz.

With the sequence locked and the 3D models created, shots were then animated and edited into a rough animatic. Our process is an iterative refinement with frequent client check-ins to ensure that the final animation meets our client’s goals.

Our flexible production pipeline and in-house render farm allowed for quick feedback and further refinement of visual elements. Special effects like sparks, smoke, particles, clouds and explosions were developed using 3D Studio Max, Fume FX, Particle Flow, Mass Effects, plus a number of proprietary scripts and plugins.

Final polish in After Effects, professional voice over and custom sound design all came together to give the Alcon Transformation animation a slick finish. The end result realized the client’s vision of a high impact keynote introduction that would blow the audience away. With Elara’s talented production team, world class project management team and Alcon’s innovative vision, this project came together on-time and on-budget.