In a departure from the exacting style we most recently saw in their Hublot Full Carbon film, Italian CG specialists Ditroit let loose with a tower of cushiony chaos, a cheeky metaphor for the “Play Smooth” power of Nike’s LeBron 19 shoe.

Salvatore Giunta, CD at Ditroit: “In this film, we embraced the ‘play smooth’ imperative to the limit, picturing a shoe with a never-ending sole for infinite playing comfort and introducing a mental range of materials, mixing silicone rubber with steel, plastic with barbed wire, and gum with razors.
 

“Since the film is based on a single continuous shot, the initial challenge was to define and design a way to easily handle over 100 simulated layers and fit them into a single 3D scene.”

 
“For the creation of this universal synthetic imagery we drew inspiration from a hybrid constellation of elements from diverse realms – ranging from the basketball court to hip-hop culture, from the streets to niche subcultures, yet all united by an unmistakably bold and striking stylistic swagger.

“From a technical standpoint, since the film is based on a single continuous shot, the initial challenge was to define and design a way to easily handle over 100 simulated layers and fit them into a single 3D scene.

“The entire structure is the result of a complex nested structure, where 3D layers are meticulously assembled and seamlessly interact with a diverse set of tiny, wiggling secondary elements. Overall, the film required more than 2.5 TB of cache to be stored on our servers, a substantial amount of data.”

Watch the process reel:
 

 
 

 
Client: Nike

Production: Ditroit
CD: Salvatore Giunta
Design/Development: Alessandro Nobile, Claudio Gasparollo, Matteo Nicoli, Mantas Bardauskas
, Marco Serracca, Christian Cabiddu, Davide Rubini, Maria Grazia Di Giovannantonio, Giovanni Mauro

Producer: Irene Costantini, Noemi Bugli

Audio: Zelig Sound