Paras Juneja

ALPINE WATERSAFE PRO

Alpine is a leader in hearing protection, known for its innovative and reusable earplugs. It partners with global leaders such as F1, MotoGP, Ticketmaster, 24hLeMans and more. Alpine safeguards over 1.3 million ears annually and operates in 65 countries, making healthy hearing accessible worldwide.

ALPINE approached me for a project focused on creating high-quality 3D renders to be used on the packaging of an upcoming product, the Alpine WaterSafe Pro earbuds. These earbuds are designed with water sports enthusiasts in mind, offering protection against the damaging effects of cold water and wind while maintaining connectivity with the outside world.

Alpine aimed to highlight the earbuds’ water-repellent capabilities on the front of the packaging. On the side and back panels, they wanted to feature the separate components, including the pouch, hooks, tips, and cord, rendered from a front view on a transparent background.

After carefully evaluating the project requirements, I decided to use Blender for execution of this project. I opted to use Blender instead of my usual software, Cinema 4D, as this project had no strict time constraints, which allowed me room for exploration and learning. This project was an ideal opportunity to dive deep into Blender’s capabilities and become proficient with it in order to use it as a complementary tool with Cinema 4D for future projects.

 

I used Blender’s shader editor to create procedural materials, paying close attention to detail since each part had a unique material and finish. For instance, the water-repelling section was made from a fine plastic mesh. To create the mesh material, I used a noise texture plugged into the bump map node to simulate surface imperfections. I then used checkered texture create a criss cross black and white pattern, and plugged into the alpha channel of the material to get the desired result.

For the rubber and silicone material, I combined 2 noise textures with different scales using a mix node and then plugged it into the bump node to create a realistic rubber texture with bumps. I varied the roughness value for rubber and silicone to make them look realistic.

The carrying pouch had a black cotton fabric texture with varying stitching sizes and a metallic zipper. I UV Unwrapped the pouch model and used a Magic texture node to create the fabric material. I subdivided the model and used the same texture to add displacement on the fabric texture.

The bridge was crafted from transparent plastic. I used the Glass and Transparent shader mixed with light path node, where I added the values of shadow and diffuse ray which helped capture accurate reflection and refraction of the material.

Throughout the material creation, I used the GGX specular model to get the most accurate specular highlights.

After I was done with the material creation, I was time to properly light the product. I applied a standard three-point lighting setup using a Key, fill and Rim light for the earbuds and the carrying pouch. This setup gave me the desired results off the bat.

I removed the saturation from the HDRI to make it black and white which helped me extract only the brightness values. By doing so, I eliminated any color from the HDRI interfaring with the transparent material. I then added a three point lighting setup to accentuate the curvature and add specular highlights to the bridge component.

Once satisfied with the materials, lighting, and composition, I rendered the frames as open EXR and imported them into Photoshop for post-processing.

WATER SPLASH RENDER

To emphasize the water-repelling feature of the earbuds, I composited a dynamic water splash to the earbud render in photoshop, highlighting their functionality.

Apline was highly impressed with the quality and realism of the renders and informed me that they not only match but exceed their quality expectations. However, they felt that the flat layout showcasing the earbuds’ components on the back of the packaging lacked aesthetic appeal and requested a more creative solution.

EXPLODED VIEW

Taking this feedback into account, I proposed an exploded view render. This approach not only presented the individual components of the earbuds in a visually engaging way but also showed their ability to allow sound waves to pass through while repelling water. I quickly created a rough sketch for reference.

I separated the components of the earbud model and offset their Y-axis positions to arrange them in a straight line for the exploded view. With the materials and lighting already finalized, I rendered the setup and completed the design in Photoshop by compositing the sound waves and  water splash.

I presented this solution to the client, explaining how it effectively addressed two ideas: enhancing the packaging’s visual appeal and communicating the functionality of the earbuds to the consumers  in an informative way.

RESULT

Alpine liked the exploded view render and its concept, so much so that they decided to feature it on the back of the packaging, appreciating my creative problem solving. The client’s final request was to provide all project files to create a repository for future collaboration.

To ensure ease of use for future artists, I organized the files, packaged them with all the textures and UV maps. Renamed each layer in both Blender’s outliner and Photoshop following the same naming convention. This approach would allow seamless collaboration for future modifications.