A 3-D animation in your trade show booth can attract customer attention while educating your customers in a high-tech, polished display.

3-D animation has improved greatly since the crude and jerky graphics created for early video games. Thanks to computers with faster processing speeds and video cards, 3-D graphics can be created for multiple purposes.

2-D graphics, of course, are nothing new at trade shows. But the difference in image quality in 3-D is exponential. Think of 3-D as more like sculpting or photography, while 2-D is more like painting.

Technically speaking, a 3-D graphic is a three-dimensional virtual representation of objects stored in the computer. The computer performs calculations and renders images into viewable form. Consider the Four E's when weighing the advantages of a 3-D animation:

•Eye-catching: 3-D provides the depth and reflection and detail that can grab customers' attention in trade shows. In a media-rich environment like a trade show, a 3-D graphic truly "pops out" amid the clamor and lights.

•Educational: Many studies have demonstrated how perception is enhanced by 3-D images. There's a reason pilot and military simulation exercises occur in a 3-D environment, since student pilots will retain what they learned with ease.

Likewise, a 3-D animation will display your product in brilliant color and detail, driving home the message to viewers who will remember your display. Trade show customers only take 2-3 seconds to decide whether they want to visit a booth. A 3-D animation can pack more information than a poster or animated logo in that vital 2-3 seconds.

3-D graphics can easily illustrate complicated concepts, services or products. For example, 3-D graphics studio VirtueGraphics, Tempe, AZ, created a clip that illustrated a medical procedure – how to insert a flexible lens in a human eye – for a surgical equipment manufacturer. The animation showed the procedure in a clean, clear fashion that eliminated any extraneous details for the audience of surgeons.

•Entertaining: Remember Pixar's Toy Story? Part of the fun in watching that entrancing movie was the action figures. The characters seemed to move in an integrated fashion with their environment. They were not plastic figures moving stiffly against a backdrop, but living, breathing beings that acted and re-acted in natural ways.

Likewise, a product or a service can be illustrated in an entertaining fashion that invites the public to stop and enjoy themselves. That makes it easier for an animation to educate viewers in a quick and efficient manner.

Interactive features can also entice visitors to your booth. VirtueGraphics creates interactive animations that allow clients to rotate in real-time around the product and change the look and feel of products instantly.

•Extremely high-tech and polished appearance: 3-D graphics are associated with video games for a reason – the game designers use them to vividly display the hardware, gleaming gadgets and rapid, smooth motions of the game characters. Likewise, a trade show exhibit for a high-tech service or product will have a futuristic edge that stands out from other booths.
In addition, 3-D animations have the same advantages as 2-d animations in a trade show:

•Art crosses languages and barriers in international trade shows. A well-done animation can be crafted to convey a message without language interfering with the meaning. Such an animation can be easily used across borders in international trade shows. Or, multiple versions can be made with slightly different text to suit the cultures of the audiences. VirtueGraphics has created animation clips for a yacht equipment manufacturer that appear in boat shows in Monaco and the U.S. – and the clips can be used for multilingual audiences with ease.

•Transportable. An animation clip and the equipment used to display it can be easily transported, packed up and set up. Elaborate sets will not have to be constructed and stored. Marketing staff can be quickly trained on how to install and operate the equipment that is no more difficult to run than a DVD player.

•Space efficient. A snazzy animation display requires just a screen and projector, plus chairs and tables for viewers. The whole set up takes less than half the floor space as elaborate sets and lighting equipment.

•Easily modified for other marketing purposes. A 3-D animation clip can be modified for use in a variety of formats. Some examples:

•Burn a copy of the animation onto CD business cards to distribute at trade shows or sales calls.

•Use the animation to demonstrate products and services on a laptop or DVD player during a face-to-face sales call.

•Put the animation clip – or stills – on a Web site.

•Install in a PowerPoint presentation for training clients and staff.

Some things to consider about 3-D animations

• 3-D graphics cost more than 2-D graphics animation. Why? Creating a 3-D graphics requires high-powered hardware and software, as well as trained artists and programmers.

• If your clients want to display the graphics properly, they will need powerful processors, fast video cards and a plasma screen.

Some terms to be aware of when working with your 3-D graphics firm:

Modeling: Creating the individual objects that are later used in the scene. Modeling processes may also include designing the surfaces of the objects, such as lighting and textures.

Scene layout setup: The arrangement of virtual objects, lights, cameras and other entities on a scene – much like designing a set and cinematography of a movie.

Wireframe: The basic skeleton that holds 3-D objects together. Think of it as a schematic outline of the finished product. Often, before a studio finishes its final version, it will show the client a wireframe version. With a wireframe, the designer and client can quickly review changes without long delays that come with rendering an animation to its final form.

A 3-D animation for maritime trade shows
VirtueGraphics created a 3-D animation to demonstrate yacht mechanical equipment for boat shows, while giving its client a flexible marketing tool.

The 3-1/2 minute animation featured Quantum Marine Engineering (Fort Lauderdale, FL) "zero speed" stabilizers, which are hydraulic-powered devices located under water in the middle of the yacht.
The animation compared the stability of a yacht equipped with the stabilizer against a yacht without one.

"3-D animation is the best solution to see what happens under water in a controlled way. It is also much more cost-effective than true film since we can go with a ‘virtual' camera under

any angle, or potentially dangerous place," said John Koop, president and CEO of VirtueGraphics.

"One of the problems in marketing this entirely new technology was the difficulty in explaining to prospective customers (shipbuilders and yacht owners) exactly how the system worked. The company had an extremely good word-of-mouth network where the customers who had had the systems installed were very ready to expound on the benefits of the technology.

New customers, however, had real problems in understanding the basic physics and practical aspects of how the systems could serve in both modes of ship operations (underway and at anchor)," said Mike Perkins, vice president of business development at Quantum.

Koop's firm initially exchanged e-mails with Quantum, about possible ideas for the animation. From there, VirtueGraphics made a storyboard to demonstrate the concept. When Quantum Controls approved the idea, engineers sent AutoCad files of the stabilizers. VirtueGraphics then made models with the AutoCad files, then a small rendered version of the animation for approval before making the final product.

"The animations are played constantly on our computer screens at boat shows and have been a proven attraction," Perkins said. "Our company has expanded the use of animations to demonstrate the benefits of several of our new product/technology developments. We find these animations invaluable in making some of the very complicated physical and technical aspects of our products understandable.

"The final animation was made in DVD and CD-ROM format, which enabled Quantum to use the artwork in multiple settings. Sales reps could wander out of the trade show booths with their DVD players to demonstrate Quantum's technology. Stills from the animation were used in artwork in sales literature. The animation was used in training to explain the technology.

"Our main purpose is that the client will sell more products and services via these 3-D animation tools. It's an investment with a huge return in the form of increased customers and increased sales," Koop said.

VirtueGraphics has also helped with cross-marketing for multiple clients in the animations. The studio created an image of the Millennium 140 yacht for Mulder Design, a yacht builder, for boat shows. That model, in turn, will be featured in a four-minute animation the studio is creating to demonstrate Quantum technology.

"The artists at VirtueGraphics really brought out the beauty and design qualities of both our clients in these animations, making them into powerhouse product-marketing and development tools in trade shows," Koop said. eb

Anne Watson is a freelance writer in Chandler, AZ.