Behold the intergalactic reinvention of the running shoe as imagined by Blacklist, Tendril, and an international crew of A-team freelancers for Nike’s launch of the LunarEpic Flyknit.

Tendril: “One of the biggest challenges was creating the environment where the action takes place. Armed with photo references from Nike of Pariah Canyon in Arizona (a place of insanely gorgeous flowing layers of rocks) we created an entire planet in 3D.

“We did it by researching, experimenting, going back to drawing board some more, and then by exporting data back and forth between World Machine and C4D.

“Likewise, the giant galaxy required a ton of problem-solving. There was no way to generate it procedurally and still have the level of control we wanted.

“In the end, we came up with a complex recipe that combined a traditionally modeled base geometry with procedural noises and World Machine height maps that were fed through a layer shader and distorted with additional noises.

“What was totally unique about the project for us was the global collaboration. Blacklist is in NY, Tendril in Toronto, Frame in Denmark, Nike in Portland, and there was a slew of freelance gurus dotted all over the world.

“In total we had Canada, US, Brazil, Germany, Slovenia, Denmark and the UK all on this project. This made it an explosion of deadly talents. We all worked together hooked up by a massive 2TB Dropbox account.”

Watch behind-the-scenes:

Client: Nike

Production: Blacklist
EP: Andrew Linsk
Producer: Karen Lawler, Alex Unick

Studio: Tendril, Frame
Co-Directors: Chris Bahry, Tom Crate
EPs: Kate Bate, Thomas Bay
HOP / Producer: Mary Anne Ledesma
Producer: Louise Bejerholm
Storyboards: Greg Boychuk, Gabe Sapienza
Editor: Tom Crate
Pitch Concepts: Chris Bahry, Tom Crate, Wojtek Szklarski, Ann Kruetzkamp, Marco Iozzi

Reveal Film
Lead 3D Artists/Animation: Nejc Polovsak, Matt Frodsham, Simon Fiedler
Particle FX: Simon Fiedler, Alasgar Hasanov, Marcin Porebski
Shoe Rigging/Animation:Matias Hansen
Lighting/Render: Nejc Polovsak, Matt Frodsham
Additional 3D Artists: Sacha Wechselmann, Ben Pilgrim
Shoe Modeling: Marek Denko
Matte Painting: Bojan Zoric, Form Language
Compositing: Chris Bahry, Brad Husband

Sound Design/Music: John Black @ CypherAudio