Local Television Station Finds CINEMA 4D Eases Collaboration

Small graphics department in a medium-sized television station creates a big rebrand.

LIN Television Stations of Indianapolis, Indiana, USA consist of the CBS affiliate, WISH-TV, My Network affiliate, WNDY-TV (a.k.a. "MyNDY"), and Spanish language network, Univision affiliate, WIIH-TV. Locally, this family of stations is the 24-hour news source for central Indiana and is identified as such through their content, promotions and graphic look.

WIXH-TV's Graphics Operations Manager, Chris Newman, who oversees the station's graphics technology and training, and is also lead designer, is quick to point out that he is not a 3D expert but is able to achieve results that belie his experience by implementing CINEMA 4D in his workflow. Chris says they have used CINEMA 4D in their Mac-based art department since Release 8. Along with CINEMA 4D's inherent artist-friendly approach, he credits the CINEMA 4D online community for making ongoing learning a pleasurable experience, "CINEMA 4D has a great user base on many sites online".

Recently, CINEMA 4D played a pivotal role in the rebranding of LINs' family of stations in Indianapolis.
WISH-TV worked collaboratively with post house, Giant Octopus, (who also uses CINEMA 4D) to get the basics of their new look created, including the color palette, tempo, and base animations. Then they took what Giant Octopus created and developed it into what is now their complete on-air look. Says Newman of this experience: "CINEMA 4D was very helpful with this because I didn't need to have the in-depth knowledge of the program that the post house artist has to [be able] change and evolve the elements [to achieve] the look we were after. That's one of the main things I like about CINEMA 4D. It's pretty easy to get the basics down and the basics really allow me to do quite a bit. It also gave me enough knowledge to follow what Giant Octopus created and change things without relying on them to do it for us. Previous programs weren't user-friendly enough to allow me that luxury".

The highest profile graphics are the elements of their newscast, most notably the news opening, on which everything else is based. For their current look WISH-TV wanted a very clean, classy and elegant look. "We got the basic building blocks for our (WISH-TV) look from Giant Octopus and we completed our package from that. [On a daily basis], we also produce creative [content] for the WIIH newscast. The goal was to keep the exact same color palette and format for the WIIH newscast, without the branding elements of our main station. We are WISH-TV 8' so the number 8 is a prominent design element in our package", observes Newman.

Utilizing all of the CINEMA 4D files that Giant Octopus used to make their '8' elements (which included all animation, as well as geometry) it made converting the package more of a plug-and-play experience. Newman simply took the branding element for WIIH (the Univision logo) as an Adobe Illustrator file and imported it into every CINEMA 4D scene that needed to be changed. He then swapped the Ô8' spline with the Univision spline, positioned it correctly and was essentially done. The NURBS [were] based on the Univision spline and were already animated, so all Chris had to do was re-render the Univision logos and replace those renders in the After Effects comps. This saved substantial time compared to the time it would have taken to create a separate broadcast package for WIIH. Rendering time was also sped up with the use of CINEMA 4D's Net Render module.

"Besides ease of use, another main appeal of CINEMA 4D is its affordability. With other programs, we just haven't been comfortable throwing down a couple thousand dollars for a program that will be very difficult just to get started with. With CINEMA 4D, we are paying a very reasonable price for software that I will be able to use right out of the gate. And the more I use it, the more I'll learn. That, in combination with it's intuitive interface, makes for a great 3D application in our fast-paced broadcast environment", says Newman.