Pre-Production

Concept & Scripting

S+S Industries came to us with a specific challenge: create a facility flythrough video that didn’t just show their current operations, but also painted a clear picture of their upcoming expansion. This wasn’t going to be a typical industrial walkthrough. They needed a high-impact visual story that seamlessly blended live-action FPV drone footage with 3D conceptual animation—built to showcase scale, efficiency, and future potential without relying on voiceover. The story had to live in the movement of the camera, the rhythm of the edit, the soundtrack, and the text overlays.

With no narration to lean on, every shot had to carry its own weight. Visual clarity and intentionality were key—from the choreography of team members at stamping and bending machines, to forklifts moving pallet loads, to semi-trucks flowing in and out of the site. Even the packaging process became a branded storytelling moment, as S+S supplied specific wrap designs for trays and boxes to tie brand identity into both the real and animated portions of the video.

From the outset, scripting focused on creating a journey—starting with immersive, boots-on-the-ground FPV that established trust, then transitioning into stylized 3D animation to map out the expansion. That progression let us literally lift the roof off the facility, animate forklifts and semi-trucks, populate racks, and finish with a wide, cinematic aerial that brought the full vision together.

Rapid Prototype (RP)

We kicked things off with a handheld walkthrough video that served as a tactical planning tool for the FPV pilot. This previs gave us a detailed flight path through both buildings and marked the key “choreography beats” we needed to time perfectly: opening up the power plate lines, stamping and bending sequences, packaging in motion, bay doors rolling up, forklifts moving fabricated parts and branded boxes, and truck exits down the egress road. Because this was built around a single-take flythrough aesthetic, we created timing notes and waypoints to match camera movement with on-floor action. Those notes went to facility staff well ahead of the drone shoot so everything could run in sync.

At the same time, we built a digital twin of the facility in Blender. Using photogrammetry and on-site interior photos, we recreated the layout with high enough detail to hold up to close-range FPV-style camera moves. Box and tray assets were modeled and skinned with S+S’s real packaging wraps, so even in high-speed shots, the brand stayed front and center.

We locked in early vehicle movement prototypes as well. Semi-trucks were rigged to follow spline paths that mimicked real drive lanes. Those paths had stop-go logic built in for loading zones and looped cleanly for later scaling and layering. This let us preview the choreography at prototype stage and crank up volume in full production without redoing animation.

Forklifts needed a more lifelike feel, so we turned to Unreal Engine 5. We rigged a drivable forklift and manually performed full pickup-to-placement sequences using Take Recorder—capturing natural driving behavior like fork tilt, mast lift, acceleration, and steering correction. We exported those performances to FBX, cleaned them up, and brought them into Blender. Inside Blender, we synced these motions to tray and pallet props, so each load visibly locked into place on pickup and released naturally into racks or truck beds. We also trimmed forklift loops into clean cycles (ingress → pick → travel → place → egress), allowing us to populate scenes with multiple forklifts moving in rhythm without collision or repetition.

To wrap RP, we mapped the camera handoff point. The CG camera in Blender was rigged with FPV-style physics—low passes, fast banks, tight corners—so we could invisibly cut from live drone footage to animation, then ease into a steady aerial fly-up for the expansion payoff.

Style Choices & Reasoning

We chose the whiteboard-style for three core reasons. First, it draws a clear line between present-day operations and future expansion. The FPV footage sets the tone with realism; the stylized CG shifts the viewer into planning mode without the visual noise of photoreal rendering. Second, it spotlights brand and capacity—by stripping out excess detail, the packaging stands out as proof of throughput and brand continuity. Third, it enables high information density. White geometry and linework keep text overlays clean and readable, even during fast motion. That was essential since we were telling the whole story without voiceover—every caption had to land quickly and clearly, without clutter.

Prototyping Animation Concepts

We dug deeper into animation workflows using both Blender and Unreal to refine motion and behavior.

After recording forklift performances in Unreal, we cleaned up the cycles—removing idle time and stitching movements to ensure loopable clean poses. In Blender, we fixed scale mismatches, aligned root motion to floor planes, and locked attach points on props for precise pick-and-place sync. Where multiple forklifts used the same space, we time-offset their loops, varied fork height and movement speed, and added subtle pauses to eliminate repetitive patterns—crucial for believable timelapse playback.

Truck paths were authored as Bezier curves, with each truck constrained to its route. Speed was controlled by distance, preventing unnatural sliding on turns. Checkpoints were scripted with slight randomization for realism. Each looped cleanly, allowing duplication and phase shifting for layered traffic without sync issues. This gave us the flexibility to speed up or slow down perceived activity in edit without reshooting or rebuilding paths.

With loopable trucks and forklifts, we built a throughput rig in Blender’s timeline. Each actor had a set cycle and a time offset, allowing us to simulate different levels of activity—light, medium, or heavy. Editorial could then choose the ideal density to match musical beats and maximize on-screen legibility. Because all loops shared the same clean start/end frames, we could cut between scenes at any density level without visual artifacts.

We tested fast, FPV-style camera passes—low dives through doors, weaving through racks, strafe shots over pallets—and transitions into controlled aerial fly-ups for the big reveal. Each move was blocked out with placeholder captions to ensure that hero text landed in-frame and transitioned cleanly into lower-thirds, without blocking key visuals or disrupting flow.

Client Feedback Shaping Direction

Early client feedback led to a few critical pivots. First, they asked us to transition hero text into lower-thirds once each message landed—giving the visuals more breathing room during fast flythroughs. Second, they wanted more variety in the packaging—requesting both power plate and hyper plate wraps, along with wrap designs that extended to box sides for close-ups. At the same time, they asked us to leave a few boxes blank for realism. We handled this with selective re-texturing on foreground boxes and re-rendered sequences to maintain consistency throughout the shot. Once these refinements were in place, timing and transitions were approved, and the RP locked in as the go-forward blueprint for Full Production.

Production & Post-Production (FP)

Design & Animation

With the RP locked, we moved straight into refining the schematic animation style for final output. In Blender, we implemented a dual-pass rendering pipeline—one pass for clean geometry and textures, and a second for Freestyle outlines. This setup gave us the flexibility we needed in post, allowing us to dial in line weights without compromising visual clarity.

Lighting stayed bright and evenly distributed. No dramatic contrast—just clean, readable visuals that held up even during high-density timelapse sequences. We tuned the packaging wraps to stand out against the neutral white geometry without pushing saturation too far, reinforcing brand visibility while keeping the conceptual style intact.

Full production meant scaling up the motion systems we’d proven in RP. Forklift animations, captured in Unreal Engine via Take Recorder, were brought into Blender as FBX files and integrated with prop geometry. We staggered and offset these loops to create natural variation. Forks lifted and dropped loads at frame-accurate timings, with attach and release points synced precisely to the trays and pallets.

Spline-driven trucks were expanded into full traffic cycles. Each truck looped cleanly through entry, loading, and exit sequences. By offsetting cycles across multiple instances, we created a convincing flow of logistics without animating each truck from scratch. These layered, repeatable systems made it possible to scale the expansion model with realistic motion at volume.

The expanded warehouse layout included fully built-out rack systems, strategically arranged for flow and clarity. We preserved operational logic—forklift lanes, truck paths, and staging zones were laid out in ways that made sense spatially and still read clearly at high speed.

Technical Details

We rendered all final shots in Blender’s Cycles engine, with separate Freestyle passes for linework. Compositing happened in After Effects, where the two layers were merged and balanced. Client-supplied packaging wraps were applied to box models, and color grading tuned those textures for visibility in the whiteboard-style environment.

Unreal-sourced forklift animations were cleaned to remove jitter, ensuring smooth playback in Blender. Truck paths remained spline-driven, with procedural acceleration/deceleration tied to checkpoint timing. Marrying lifelike forklift motion with repeatable truck logic gave us a realistic-but-scalable logistics layer.

The primary challenge was keeping looping motion systems from feeling robotic. Without variation, forklifts and trucks risked falling into visible patterns. We solved this by introducing staggered offsets, alternate pickup/drop points, and slight differences in pacing across loops. Forklift behaviors were tweaked with minor speed variations to avoid any mechanical rhythm. These small shifts paid off—creating the illusion of continuous, unscripted movement.

Collaboration & Revisions

Client feedback during production centered on packaging variety and text overlay behavior. They requested expanded wrap options—including hyper plate designs—and wanted a mix of wrapped and unwrapped boxes to reflect real-world diversity. These updates required targeted re-renders across affected warehouse shots to maintain texture consistency through motion.

Final round revisions focused on fine-tuning timing. Overlay timings were updated to match. Close-up box shots were reviewed again, and box side wraps were added where client had called them out. All tweaks were implemented for visual continuity before master delivery.

Final Compositing & Brand Consistency

After Effects was the backbone of compositing. Freestyle linework was layered over beauty renders to sharpen edges and guide the eye. Color grading unified tone and ensured that the schematic aesthetic stayed consistent across scenes. Text overlays were animated on beat with camera movement—timed to land and exit without blocking key motion or assets.

Branded overlay graphics were added as blue panels with white type—clean, readable, and in line with S+S visual identity. Stats and callouts were placed to complement the cut, never compete with it. Animations were timed to support pacing and energy without getting in the way of the visuals.

Every visual touchpoint—from packaging textures to data overlays—followed S+S’s brand standards. Blue-and-white remained the dominant palette, and logo lockups were tested across both live-action and CG to ensure visibility. Typography adhered to internal specs, maintaining a unified visual voice from first frame to last.

Delivery

The finished piece was delivered as a 4K H.264 video master, ready for client rollout.