Production notes:

Julien from the entertainment department of the Valbonne town council offered me this project in April 2021. At that time, the requirement was to map all façades of the Arcades Square, in the old town center. These animations were scheduled for Christmas. The requested visual style was the gingerbread houses, like they do in the East of France during the winter holiday period. You can find the recipe for this cake here.
I told about this project to my friends Simon and Brice who are both 3d artists, as I wanted them to be involved. We were enthusiastic about it and had a lot of ideas. The town hall’s wish was to recruit local artists, et actually, we’re from Valbonne, Antibes and La Turbie.

In the end the mapping surface was scaled down to only 2 façades: the Auberge Provençale Hotel and the Comptoir Victoria Café. Having a smaller project was better for a first try.
In november, we got the green light to start working on this project, and I asked Roxane to help us. She’s another 3d artist.
The façades designs were done on Photoshop. The FX on Houdini. the characters, from modelling to render, were created using Zbrush, Maya and Vray. the 2d animations were created with After Effects. The adjustments of the videos on the façades were done by Erwan using the Madmapper app.
After having collected all graphics and animations, I set up one video per façade. Our task were made easier by the 2 façades’ width and height ratio, which were more or less 16-9.
The projection started on the 10th of décembre. The Mayor and the town’s hall team were happy ? People passing by were taking photos and videos with their phones, and we even had an article about us in the local newspaper Nice Matin. Check the gallery.
This projet was exciting and fun to work on! I hope I can do more of the same kind!

I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread, spruce and video projectors.

Credits

2D and 3D computer graphics and animations:
– David Saber : modeling, surfacing, rigs, 3d character animations, 2d graphics, FX.
– Brice Roussillon : modeling, surfacing, 2d graphics, 2d animations, Ptit Biscuit.
– Roxane Dalonis : modeling, surfacing, 2d graphics, 3d character animations, Madelaine.
– Simon Grell : 2d graphics.

Project manager:
– Valbonne Town Council

Projections :
– Erwan Bertho, Decibel.

Scaffoldings:
– Altrad PACA.

Canvas covers:
– SB Sellerie.