Based in Geneva, it was only a matter of time before CG artist Albin Merle ramped up the CG watch wars, and so he has with this spec spot carving a zoetrope into the face of a luxury timepiece from venerable Swiss brand IWC Schaffhausen.

Albin Merle: “The film is centered around the idea of mechanical precision and rhythmic motion. It draws inspiration from the IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40, a watch celebrated for its connection to Formula 1. Our goal was to reinterpret this sense of power and craftsmanship through the language of digital motion and sound.

“The project was built as a modern reinterpretation of a zoetrope, where each frame exists as a distinct moment within a single 3D model. Every position along the carousel’s rotation represents one phase of motion, resulting in a continuous loop.
 

“The creative challenge was to maintain both mechanical discipline and organic energy, ensuring each segment of the sequence felt alive while respecting the strict rhythm of the structure.”

 
“The creative challenge was to maintain both mechanical discipline and organic energy, ensuring each segment of the sequence felt alive while respecting the strict rhythm of the structure.

“The technical challenge was to organize and animate the high number of individual poses within one rotating structure while keeping spatial and temporal coherence. Each model variation had to be adjusted manually to create realistic randomness without breaking the circular flow.

“Synchronizing the motion and lighting with the evolving camera path required fine-tuned control. The sound design by Liam Phan added an additional layer of complexity, with spatial audio elements that had to align perfectly with the visual rhythm to achieve immersion.

“The visuals were created entirely in Blender and rendered with Cycles. Color grading and final compositing were done in After Effects. All rendering and simulation were performed on a single NVIDIA RTX 4090 workstation.”
 
 

 
Director/animator: Albin Merle

Sound Design/music: Liam Phan

Toolkit: Blender, Cycles, After Effects