Ditroit Pile On and “Play Smooth for Nike’s LeBron 19 – Motion design [Video]

In a departure from the exacting style we most recently saw in their Hublot Full Carbon film, Italian CG specialists Ditroit let loose with a tower of cushiony chaos, a cheeky metaphor for the “Play Smooth” power of Nike’s LeBron 19 shoe.

Salvatore Giunta, CD at Ditroit: “In this film, we embraced the ‘play smooth’ imperative to the limit, picturing a shoe with a never-ending sole for infinite playing comfort and introducing a mental range of materials, mixing silicone rubber with steel, plastic with barbed wire, and gum with razors. 

“Since the film is based on a single continuous shot, the initial problem was to define and design a way to easily handle over 100 simulated layers and fit them into a single 3D scene.”

“For the creation of this universal synthetic imagery we drew inspiration from a hybrid constellation of elements from diverse realms – ranging from the basketball court to hip-hop …