G-Star embraced its denim roots to showcase its ongoing passion for the innovation and craftsmanship of RAW denim, and the constant need to push the boundaries of this versatile product.

Inspired by its brand essence of 'RAW', the G-Star creative team made a campaign concept that brings you up close to the creation of the denim fabric.

The main campaign film was scripted along the fascinating journey of the creation of raw denim – from the preparation of cotton, the dying process, all the way to the final product. Typical for the G-Star philosophy of unexpected combinations, the journey, which logically would end with a pair of jeans, has a twist by landing on the back of a running skeleton dog.

The film was created together with Glasswork Amsterdam, which are known for CGI films such as the Bjork video clip by Chris Cunningham. For the music of the campaign film, G-Star teamed up with American electronic music producer Skrillex, who created the soundtrack – 'Puppy'. Inspired by the film, Skrillex brought the film to live with composed sounds.

The Film was realized as a full CGI-Animation. All the 3D was done in Softimage using the Arnold renderer and composited in Nuke. Additional 2D elements were added in flame and the grading was done in-house on baselight.

This Film was all about the material. So it was crucial to achieve a super photorealisic look that would stand up to the critical eyes of the denim experts.

As we figured every sequence needed its own approach, we decided to split the job up into sequences rather than departments (i.e. Animation, Rigging etc.). So every sequence was handled by a different artist who would take care of the creation of whole individual shots, from the models and rigging all the way to texturing and rendering. This led to many different ways of setting up the ropes and threads, each specific to the needs of the shot. To make sure there was a clear continuity throughout the film, every artist always referred back to real macro photography of denim rather than trying to match what another artist had made.

The cotton sequence is largely created using Softimage ICE system, the weaving sequence uses curve-deformed geometry for the threads, whereas the denim fabric seen in the stitching and button shots was created using hires textures and displacement maps.

The physical skeleton dog was 3D scaned using a NextEngine scanner. The hi-res mesh was exported as .obj and then cleand up and refined using Mudbox. The denim jacket was then attached using multiple cage deformers and Syflex cloth simulation.