Garden Studios in London used virtual production to create a Christmas ad campaign when filming took place in July.

Tropic Skincare’s Christmas ad depicts a cosy, festive domestic setting, where a classic British home is dressed in fairy lights. A concierge in a vintage-inspired green uniform delivers a pile of gift-wrapped boxes to the householder who answers the door.

The lead technical artist at Garden Studios, Liam Wedge, led the creation of the fully-procedural winter city street using the Unreal Engine (UE) Procedural Content Generation (PCG) system. This technology enabled real-time adjustments of small details, like road widths, garden lengths, and foliage variations.

Wedge said: “Being able to change things at a button press alongside the creative director, Barney Pickard, really allows us to nail the look. This includes changing lighting, adding more snow or entirely removing a building.”

Using the 3D software, Houdini, Wedge then added festive touches to the backdrop, forming fairy lights that naturally wrapped around objects and appeared realistic with the use of vertex colour variations. Physical snow machines were also used on set alongside digital snow with adjustable flake size and density to blend the foreground and background further.

Sam Kemp, virtual production technical lead at Garden Studios, explained: “The Tropic Skincare team were all completely new to VP, but were captivated by the possibilities it afforded them to make their budgets go further.

“By collaborating with our experienced technical team, who can offer production advice from pre-production through to the shoot days, the brand used practical sets and atmospherics to seamlessly blend the physical and digital worlds.”

Bee Devine, COO at Garden Studios, enthused: “Virtual production gives producers so much more creative control, as it allows you to choose the weather conditions for a scenic background without facing the limitations – or risks – these can cause when filming on location. The flexibility of virtual production means that the creative process remains the top priority.”

Garden Studios launched a VP studio in 2021 and has since delivered over 120 productions, including games, films, television series, and commercials.

Emily Mitchell, marketing director of Tropic Skincare, said there had been “some anxiety around how it would unfold”, as they had never worked with a virtual studio before, adding that “the end result exceeded all our expectations — a breathtaking film we’re so proud of, made in a way that reflects our planet-first values.”

You can watch the full ad below.

Video courtesy of Tropic Skincare