Sandvik Automine® Core
3D explanatory animation
Having collaborated with Sandvik on product visualizations for several years, I am proud to showcase the first non-NDA project with a public release intended for promoting Sandvik's mining automation technologies on social media.
This particular project spanned over three months, with a main focus of preparing high quality visualisations of Sandvik technology operating in the natural environment of a realistic mining operation. This required attentive processing of all CAD models of the equipment to convert them to actual meshes, rig them, as well as further clean and ready the models and their textures for animation. It is intended for these models to be used in future visualisations as well, so they had to be prepared with versatility and ease of use in mind. Besides the machinery animations, pyro simulation effects were used to visualize the dust, while rigid body simulation allowed showcasing seamless interactions between rocks and the machinery.
During the production process everything was done in close collaboration with the client. While the base script of the video was provided by Sandvik, the storyboarding and animatic done by me required active feedback sessions before proceeding. Once the draft animation was approved, it was time for the clean renders and compositing of the final video in DaVinci Resolve.
The video also features AI generated text-to-speech narration and Sandvik-branded music.
Role:
CAD models processing, Rigging, Texturing, Animation, Post production
Client:
Below are some separate technical animation previews.
Each set of Sandvik machinery was prepared with an individual articulated machine rig, including controls for bowls, pipes and other custom features. Additional simplified modes and rigs were required for non-Sandvik machinery such as the chutes, crushers and other loaders.
A machinery texturing preview below.
Preparing the models from CAD files required careful consideration in order to keep as many details as possible for a sophisticated and modern look, while still cleaning and simplifying the models for compatibility with animation and faster rendering. The textures of the vehicles had to be updated to reflect the new livery that came with Sandvik's rebrand.
