Overview
This project covered several distinct CG elements for a series of Oral-B toothbrush commercials. The main technical challenges involved simulating bristle wire dynamics, building a procedural ring animation system, and creating plaque destruction using RBD. Each element needed to be flexible enough to adapt across multiple spots in the campaign.
Bristle Wire Simulation
The toothbrush bristles were simulated using Houdini’s wire solver, with constraints tuned to produce a clean, responsive feel that matched the art direction. The simulation was set up to be reusable across different brush head configurations and motion inputs, allowing the team to iterate on brush movement without rebuilding the sim from scratch each time.
Procedural Ring Animation
A secondary element in the spots required animated rings emanating from the brush head to visualise the cleaning action. These were built procedurally in Houdini, with controls for timing, scale, and layering to allow easy variation between shots. The rings were designed to integrate cleanly with the live action plates, matching the camera moves and remaining consistent across the campaign.
Plaque RBD
Plaque destruction was handled with an RBD setup using Voronoi fracturing with additional noise applied to the fracture lines to give a more organic breakup. Constraints were configured to hold until the brush contact triggered a force, producing a clean directional shatter that followed the bristle sim timing.