The Challenge
Amaze created the sophisticated, interactive two-minute movie to support the launch of Lexus’ new generation IS model and act as an online centerpiece for the launch, which took place in the UK in June and is now being rolled out across Europe.
The Strategy
The immersive showcase uses a blend of actual video footage with CGI to allow users to watch and control their viewing experience. From selecting the exterior colour design to understanding more about the controls, precision handling and the break-through engineering behind the new IS, viewers can pick and choose the features they want to explore when they watch the movie.
The movie provides viewers with the opportunity to see and truly experience the IS in a completely immersive way, even before they book a test drive or visit a showroom.
To create a seamless link between the real and virtual, Amaze filmed the IS driving through different landscapes and teamed up with high-end, Munich-based, 3D visualisation experts, RTT, to scan and take 360-degree imagery of the environment at key points. Built in HTML5, the experience works across all devices and features as the content of an app to promote and sell the new model.
The movie enables viewers to move easily from a ‘passive’ watching experience to an active ‘immersive’ experience, where they can pause the movie to spin and change the colour of the car within the movie itself. We used the HTML5 Canvas to achieve this and for the interior spins, where users can change the interior colour of the car whilst seeing it in a parallax format, we fused CSS 3D transforms and Javascript.
The Results
The site was awarded site and mobile site of the day by the FWA on 15 August.