IDEA

M&S working with Aircards wanted to produce a mobile experience to work alongside the Christmas TV advert.  The concept would be based around turning the users real Christmas tree into a virtual one, and finally into a Christmas message that could be shared with other users.

CHALLENGES

Turning a 2D photo of a users Christmas tree into a virtual one would involve multiple steps using a number of different pieces of AI generative software. Many separate areas of R&D were set up to explore different 2D to 3D AI solutions along with AI models to selective identify the tree and remove it from the background. These were explored while additional R&D pipelines were being developed to use Comfy UI along with Cinema 4D rendering for the video element. Everything then needed to be integrated together before a final solution was developed.

SOLUTION

The final experience allowed a user to take a single photo of there Christmas tree using a mobile website. They were asked to add a message and if they wanted upload additional images to further enhance the final video. Upon completion the users image was passed to an server running the ComfyUI workflow. This workflow took the users image, removed the background and then passed it to a 2D to 3D AI generative model. At this point the 3D model was then loaded back into the users mobile web experience. The 3D Christmas tree was placed inside a 3D snow globe of the users choosing using ThreeJS. The user could then shake the globe and snow would move around and settle on the tree. While the user was playing with the snow globe they were also able to watch the latest M&S TV Advert. This was all created as a holding scene while in the background the ComfyUI workflow had taken the 3D Christmas tree along with the users other photos and message and passed it onto another pipeline that placed the users tree into a 3D scene and rendered out a video. The final video was then passed back to the user for them to watch and download. Due to the complexity of this having the interactive snow globe and advert helped kill the time needed to produce it.

TECHNOLOGIES USED

AI, Animation, HTML5, Javascript, ComfyUI

RESULT

Video Preview here