3D animation studio in Geneva
Modeling, texturing, animation, lighting, rendering and compositing. In Geneva since 2017, with twenty years of production behind it — and most often your own design files as the starting point.
3D animation shows what no camera can film: the inside of a machine tool, a process that plays out at the scale of a micron, an instrument whose essential part is invisible. That is exactly what the industry around Lake Geneva sells, and exactly what a wide shot fails to convey.
The starting point is almost always the same: your design files. STEP and IGES are taken directly, which avoids remodelling the geometry and keeps the proportions exact — on a machined part, a tenth of a millimetre visible on screen is noticed by whoever makes it.
Then comes the choice of rendering, and it is not cosmetic. Photorealistic shows the product as it will be; stylised shows what it does. The same machine is therefore presented in two ways depending on whether you are addressing a buyer or an operator, and that decision is taken before the first image, not at the point of rendering.
For GF Machining Solutions, a full 3D film introduced the DS Family range, from storyboard to delivery, with live action and 2D animation alongside. The green screen studio was also set up on their own site, in Geneva: the speakers came down from their offices, recorded, and went back up to work.
A model also lasts longer than the film it serves. Once the machine is built in 3D, it feeds catalog visuals, exploded views for a manual, trade show images and cut-downs for social channels — with no further filming, and in each of your markets’ languages. That is what makes 3D pay on the second project, rarely on the first.
Mixing it with live footage is the most common case, and often the truest: the camera films the workshop, the hands, the operators, and 3D takes over where the camera cannot go. The join is prepared during the shoot, with markers set on the floor — added afterwards, it always shows.
That leaves the question of time, which decides more often than budget does. One to two minutes of animation take six to ten weeks, the first third of which goes on storyboard and animatic. That is when a decision costs nothing; once rendering has begun, the same decision costs a week. A trade show or a launch is therefore secured by working the calendar backwards from the date, never forwards from today.
Your design files, taken as they are
Multilingual is prepared at the modeling stage
One team, not a subcontracted pipeline
- GF Machining Solutions — the DS Family range, in 3D and live action
- GFMS — We See Big, a product teaser made entirely in 3D
- GF Machining Solutions — the corporate film for the Core range
- GF — Customer Services, a promotional film in 3D
Can you start from our CAD files?
Yes, and it is the best way in when they exist: the exact geometry of the product is taken rather than rebuilt. STEP and IGES, and the exports of the main design packages, are read directly.
How long does a 3D animated film take?
For one to two minutes, allow six to ten weeks depending on how complex the model is and the level of rendering. Storyboard and animatic take the first third: that is where decisions cost the least.
Can the film be adapted into several languages?
Yes, and it is planned from the modeling stage. On-screen text sits in its own layers and voices are re-recorded: an extra language becomes a matter of a few days, not a new production.
Do you work outside Geneva?
Yes, across French-speaking Switzerland. 3D animation is built in the studio, and the shoots that go with it — green screen, live action — are set up on your own site.