Pre-Production

Concept & Scripting

The Seatex Custom Process project was designed as a strategic visual narrative—not a literal walkthrough of equipment, but a stylized take on flexibility in manufacturing. The challenge was to visualize a system so adaptive it could reshape itself for any client, product, or configuration. The message was direct: Seatex delivers custom-blended chemical solutions from start to finish. Our job was to express that with technical credibility, abstract visuals, and motion built on metaphor and modularity.

Script development started with Seatex’s real-world stages—intake, blending, scaling, packaging—but quickly evolved into a full visual journey. The narrative leaned on a problem/solution structure: industrial production is complex; Seatex makes it simpler by unifying every step in one operation. Multiple VO drafts were tested against early animatics to dial in pacing and emphasis. Each line was designed with visual alignment in mind—like “combined in whatever ratio you need,” which directly matched a dual-pour simulation of dry and liquid materials across multiple containers.

The client also asked for stronger emphasis on their one-stop-shop model—especially around time and cost savings. This input directly shaped both the script and visual structure, influencing scenes like the multi-container blend and dynamic tile grid transitions.

Rapid Prototyping

RP focused on conceptual clarity over mechanical detail. Initial ideas showed stainless steel mixers in industrial settings, but the visual density felt off-brand and too literal. That approach was scrapped in favor of a clean, modular grid—a visual metaphor for a reconfigurable process.

Built in Cinema 4D with Mograph cloners and animated effectors, the tile system represented production steps as symbolic icons—milling, blending, heating, and more. Each tile activated with clean upward motion and spotlight isolation, forming a modular landscape that could evolve as the story progressed. The white void backdrop was a deliberate choice—keeping visuals clean and message-first while aligning tightly with Seatex’s brand.

Dry and liquid simulations were prototyped early—yellow spheres for dry, blue for liquid. Both used basic rigid body dynamics to test motion timing, fill logic, and container interaction. Photorealism was out; fast iteration was the priority. Viewport renders and low-sample animation passes allowed the team to focus on motion clarity and messaging cadence without bogging down in render overhead.

Camera paths were locked in during RP. Spline-tracked rigs and null-parented flythroughs kept movement consistent and spatially grounded. Key moments like the dry/liquid fill were built around parallel dolly shots—reinforcing the idea of simultaneous capability. Major beats—tile activation, blending, container comparison, final CTA—were blocked and timed to a scratch VO, producing a full narrative preview.

Early Visual Styles Explored

From the start, clarity and modularity guided the visual language. Shader tests explored Seatex’s brand palette—white, blue, navy, yellow—across stylized geometry. The grid was built to feel like a clean room, while active tiles were elevated with soft shadows and targeted lighting. Every icon started as a vector path in Illustrator and was converted to 3D geometry with bevels and extrusions in Cinema 4D. No grunge, no reflections—just crisp, brand-aligned abstraction.

Fluid containers were symbolic, not literal. Shape-agnostic vessels—cylinders, tanks, pods—were staged to feel plausible but clearly conceptual. The simulation language was consistent: blue meant liquid, yellow meant dry. This visual vocabulary was used across the board to help anchor meaning without explanation.

Typography and motion cards were explored early as well. Bold lines like “SAVE TIME AND MONEY” were animated over deep-blue backgrounds, using smooth Y-axis entrance motion. The clean, flat geometry of these cards balanced the complexity of simulation scenes and kept messaging clear and legible.

Prototyping Animation Concepts

Animation prototyping focused on syncing simulation, motion logic, and camera continuity. For the tile grid, we tested multiple effector falloff types—wave, random, radial—before landing on directional Y-axis activation. This made each tile selection feel intentional, not arbitrary. It was also loopable and repeatable, which gave us maximum flexibility in the edit.

Dry particle simulation started out with more turbulence—bouncy and chaotic—but that read too messy. We refined emitter logic: repositioning birth points, reducing gravity, softening bounce. The end result was a clean, precise fill that matched Seatex’s operational tone.

During RP liquid simulation used cloner-based emitters with randomized particle behavior. Instead of fluid solvers, we layered geometry and used visibility tags to suggest flow and settling. This kept things efficient and predictable at render time, while still delivering visual cues for liquid behavior.

Camera paths were aligned to VO timing using spline rigs and time-tagged keyframes. The side-by-side container comparison shot used matched framing to keep each container evenly spaced—maintaining spatial logic while driving home the comparison metaphor.

Client Feedback Shaping Direction

Client input had a major impact during RP. Initial mechanical concepts were replaced with the stylized grid system after Seatex raised concerns about misrepresenting their real equipment. That feedback led to a more symbolic design system—versatile, brand-safe, and scalable.

Specific notes led to immediate animation changes: the “splashing” dry fill was softened for clarity, a railcar container was dropped to streamline visuals, and a new multi-container fill sequence was created after the line “...into any container you can think of” was added to the VO. The client also reviewed and approved every icon, requesting adjustments like a clearer milling symbol.

Layout and pacing refinements were continuous. The original tile grid opening was too slow and felt overly staged, so we rebuilt it with a faster activation sequence. 

Production (Full Production / FP)

Design & Animation

Full Production kicked off by refining the stylized environment developed during Rapid Prototyping. The modular tile grid, particle containers, and symbolic icons carried forward but received a layered visual polish. We moved from quick viewport-style previews to fully realized materials, upgraded lighting, and tighter, more intentional compositions.

Shaders were rebuilt for production using a PBR pipeline in Cinema 4D with Redshift. Tiles were designed with a satin-finish polymer aesthetic—matte, tactile, and low-reflection to preserve legibility and reduce render noise. Blue tiles were rebalanced for contrast, helping them stand out against desaturated backgrounds.

Animation scaled significantly from the RP phase—especially in simulation timing and narrative refinement. The tile grid retained its procedural logic but now included hand-keyed layers, allowing VO-driven activation of specific tiles. Cameras pushed or panned on cue, reinforcing modularity and customization as core themes.

Simulations were rebuilt for production. Dry blends used optimized rigid body systems; liquid flows were driven by layered cloners with randomized effectors. Emitter velocity and frame offsets were fine-tuned to avoid overshoot, supporting the brand’s emphasis on precision. Custom collision geometry was used per container type, keeping particle behavior clean and realistic—especially during end-of-fill slow-downs.

The dual-stream blending scene was technically the most complex. It synced two simultaneous simulations—dry and liquid—across parallel container sequences. Each emitter had to deliver matching fill rates despite material differences. We used timed burst patterns, cached both simulations, and locked camera edits to ensure match cuts and consistent render output.

Camera animation used smooth curves, built with manual spline edits and eased transitions. Every camera move was designed to match editorial pacing—emphasizing product focus, isolating key elements, and staying grounded in spatial logic.

While the environment, tiles, and iconography spoke to modularity and control, simulation was the mechanism that showed process—how raw materials are handled, blended, and transformed. These weren’t engineering simulations in a strict technical sense. They were stylized visual metaphors—built for clarity, elegance, and alignment with the brand’s message.

Two main simulation systems were built: dry product and liquid product blending.

For dry simulations, yellow spheres were emitted in structured streams, dropping into containers with slight randomness. These represented powders, pellets, or dry chemical inputs. Early builds showed too much bounce and spillage—implying waste. To correct this, we dialed down initial velocity, tightened collisions, and set emitter lifespans to maintain a clean, efficient fill. The result helped communicate how Seatex controls solid-phase ingredients: steady flow, even fill, consistent performance across varying container types.

Liquid simulations were executed using RealFlow, fully integrated into the Cinema 4D pipeline. Unlike the dry materials, which used Cinema 4D’s native rigid body dynamics, the liquid sequences required a fully meshed, particle-driven simulation workflow. That technical lift was necessary to deliver realistic fluid behavior—surface tension, viscosity variation, and cohesive motion—all stylized but still visually credible.

RealFlow gave us precise control over emitter flow rate, simulation resolution, and how the liquid interacted with each container. We used RealFlow’s SPH (Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics) solver to generate clean, coherent pours—free of splashing or overfill, which had been flagged as a key concern during early reviews. Shaders were tuned for translucency and high reflectivity, helping the fluids visually separate from the dry simulations—especially in side-by-side or dual-pour shots.

Each container type got its own emitter shape and viscosity setting, ensuring the pour felt controlled and intentional every time. This was critical for matching the tone of precision that Seatex needed to convey.

Style Choices and Reasoning

The visual language was intentionally minimal, abstract, and unanchored from real-world facility visuals. This opened the door for flexible storytelling—representing Seatex’s capabilities without locking into specific machinery or plant layouts. Icons brought clarity, while motion and simulation added narrative rhythm and depth.

Color was tightly aligned to the brand. Blue and white formed the base palette, with yellow used sparingly to highlight dry ingredient flows. A navy gradient appeared behind key scenes to create subject isolation and simulate depth. These choices allowed visual consistency and segment-by-segment clarity.

Typography followed Seatex’s industrial identity: bold, sans-serif fonts in white or blue, always set against high-contrast backgrounds. Every on-screen phrase was paced to the VO, reinforcing the rhythm and anchoring key messages.

Technical Details

All 3D animation and rendering was executed in Cinema 4D with Redshift. Render passes included beauty, shadow, ambient occlusion, and ID mattes to support flexible compositing. Sim scenes—both fluid and dry—used cached dynamics for consistent playback and edit reliability. Global Illumination and motion blur were rendered directly in Redshift for accurate motion and lighting continuity.

In complex scenes like the dual-fill comparison, we split emitter streams by container ID and offset them by a frame to reduce render load. This gave us independent timing control while maintaining synchronicity.

Caching was essential. RealFlow sequences were baked at final resolution to avoid fluctuations between revisions. For shots involving multiple fills or mid-simulation pauses, we timed emitter bursts manually and split simulations into multiple cache segments, allowing editorial control while preserving simulation integrity. This pipeline enabled faster iterations and tight control over timing—especially important during late-stage VO sync and pacing tweaks.

Balancing minimalism with clarity was the main creative challenge. Early versions of the grid activated too many tiles too quickly, overwhelming the sequence. We resolved this by isolating key activations, using spotlighting and camera push-ins to re-center viewer focus.

Simulation accuracy also required engineering. Fast fill speeds sometimes caused rigid body particles to intersect or pop. We addressed this with collision margin tuning, lower dynamic substeps, and staggered emitter timing for better control.

To manage container diversity without expanding render times, we reused emitter logic and built modular sim setups. This gave the illusion of unique fills per container type—while keeping the system light, editable, and within production scope.

Post-Production & Delivery

Final Compositing & Color Grading

Compositing was handled in After Effects with a layer-based workflow built around pre-rendered EXR passes from Cinema 4D and Redshift. Color grading wasn’t about adding flair—it was about visual clarity and consistency. With scenes shifting between high-key whites and deep blue backgrounds, we used curves to balance contrast—especially in the tile grid shots, where the blue tiles needed to hold depth against the white voids. Midtone boosts were applied strategically to enhance vibrancy in the yellow and blue particle systems without overdoing it.

For messaging cards and typographic overlays, we applied additional sharpening and exposure balancing. Bold, fullscreen phrases like “SAVE TIME AND MONEY” and “FULL SERVICE FROM START TO FINISH” were staged on flat backgrounds with subtle vignette treatments—just enough to focus attention without distracting from the message. Hue alignment was dialed in across the board to make sure Seatex’s signature blue remained consistent no matter the lighting or background.

Infographics, UI Overlays, Data Visualization

Integrating symbolic icons and UI overlays in post was a key part of translating the story. Process steps like milling, heating, and blending were shown using clean 3D symbols that needed to feel both intuitive and on-brand. To support clarity, we layered in 2D UI overlays—floating text callouts that synced with icon animation, reinforcing the meaning without disrupting the design system.

These overlays were timed to fade in with camera moves and VO cues, staying tightly in sync. Their design mirrored flat UI: semi-transparent white panels with bold blue text—tying into Seatex’s industrial-modern visual identity.

Built in After Effects and tracked to container geometry with nulls from the 3D pipeline, indicators added meaning without crowding the frame.

Final Edits & Optimization

Final edits focused on pacing, sync, and message clarity. We re-timed tile activations by a few frames, adjusted simulation start points to align better with VO cadence, and stripped out visual overlap where particle effects and overlays were fighting for attention.

Every visual element was aligned to brand from start to finish. Typography followed Seatex’s sans-serif system, and we manually checked visual spacing and type sizing frame by frame to ensure readability. Seatex’s brand blue was color-matched by HEX from the 3D material shader setup through to the final LUT in After Effects, so the color stayed dead-on no matter the lighting.

Margins, animation curves, and motion tone were kept consistent throughout. Whether it was an icon fade or a fluid fill, everything was built to reflect Seatex’s values of precision, competence, and scalability. If a VO shift required new emphasis, we updated visuals to match—rekeying, cropping, or adjusting sync so the message hit exactly where it needed to.

Every graphic—callouts, title cards, final lockups—was passed through internal brand review before delivery to ensure it met Seatex’s standards without compromise.

Delivery

Final assets delivered included:

• 1920x1080 full-length video (H.264, MP4) for web and sales

• 1080p ProRes version for trade shows and event playback

All outputs were tested across playback environments for accurate color, clean audio, and motion fidelity.

Transcript:

A Custom Process by Seatex is like anything that you need to have custom-built.

It’s a series of techniques performed by experts to transform raw materials into a valuable creation and get it packaged into any container you can think of.

You tell us the process you need or we can help you develop the processing steps using any combination of our core services.

Save time and money with a partner who is able to streamline production, provide a turnkey service, all while having a single point of contact for the entire manufacturing process.  

So whether you have a product ready to go or it needs a little work, let Seatex with our proven track record help get your product to market.  

Contact us today.