Bangalow Koalas AIRBAG VFX Breakdown

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Bangalow Koalas

AIRBAG VFX Breakdown

When AIRBAG was approached by Momentum Worldwide to help Bangalow Koalas raise awareness for their work in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, we said “Fur sure!!”.

In collaboration with ECD Matt Batten and Founder/Director Greg Legg-Bagg, we created an emotional look into the potential future for Australia’s most loved native animal. In one seamless shot, we see an accelerated view of the Koala’s habitat being depleted and a peek into the future of what could (and we hope won’t) be.

"Bangalow Koalas is on a mission to plant 500,000 trees by 2025 to create wildlife corridors. Trees are planted by volunteers on private property donated by landowners so that the new plantings connect with existing pockets of habitat. The wildlife corridors allow koalas to roam, forage, and breed in relative safety, distancing them from vehicle strikes, dog attacks, and other threats."

- By Ricki Green, Campaign Brief

The process kicked off with stills photography to get a photographic reference, vividly capturing the essence of koala habitats.

After the stills photography, a standout hero image emerged and set the tone for Bangalow Koalas' impactful campaign.

Photogrammetry, a key technique employed in the campaign, captured real trees in the wild to authentically recreate koala habitats. This method, executed by AIRBAG VFX's Heidi Wentworth-Ping, ensured a lifelike and immersive environment for the CGI-rendered koala, enhancing the visual impact of the awareness-raising initiative by Bangalow Koalas.

AIRBAG VFX's team developed a realistic and animation-rigged CG koala model. The koala was animated in house by AIRBAG VFX's Supervisor, Rob Ride, using motion capture technology to act out the Koala’s movements, Additional muscle and fur sims rounded out the work to bring the Koala to life within its fully CG environment.

The VFX job employed Houdini and Nuke for dynamic simulations and seamless compositing. Rendering was done in Redshift, providing exceptional realism, while DaVinci Resolve was used for precise color grading, contributing to the final cinematic touch.