Making of "New Penguoen 2.38" 3

I didn't use the Non Linear Animation in this case; the whole animation has been made in a single Action. Using the original spot template as reference for the key positions, I animated with the Pose to pose technique.
In short: assign keyframes positions for the character, setting all the animation IPOs to constant (in the Action Editor select with A all the keys; go to the Key menù in the header and then Interpolation Mode>>Constant). This for establish the animation times.
Then switch the keys to linear and start to add inbetweens, creating also arcs in the movements.

Third, switch the keys to bezier and shift them where needed to avoid actions happening all at the same time.
In the IPO window (Ipo Curve Editor) select curves, go in edit mode and modify the curves handles, to slow or speed up starting and ending of single movements.

Of course I had to rearrange the acting to conform it to the penguin shape, quite different from the dancing robo-car.
I made several tests of the animation by rendering the whole in opengl (hold Cntrl key and press the last icon on the header of the 3d window, pointed by the red arrow in the image).

Usually I render the different elements as separated steps and then make a composit in the Blender sequencer (Cntrl+LeftArrow to change screens, or else in the SCR: menù on the top header); this time I made all the rendering in one shot. Also the quick transition from the jumping penguin to the roasted chicken version has been made by switching in middle animation the penguin mesh with a Shift+D copy with different textures, by layer's keys assigned to both the meshes (I>>Insert Key>>Layer).

But the sequencer has been used anyway to add the horizontal bars on the top and on the bottom of the framing, for the headline at the end and for the light darkening on the sides (just to mimic the C4 spot appareance).
In the Blender's sequencer I loaded also the music (made with the opensource software Audacity). By selecting the "Sync" button in the sound panel I could watch my animation with sound in real time, and pressing the "MIXDOWN" button Blender exported a perfectly synchronized wave file. I then combined sound and animation in VirtualDub.

"New Penguoen 2.38" took almost three weeks of work in my spare time, plus 40 hours for the rendering. I rendered it (at the resolution of 800x600) with motion blur enabled at 16 (middle of render window, F10), to discover at the end that with mb the slowparenting effect was barely visible! So I rendered it again without mb, and except for the first and the last shots (where slowparenting weren't needed) that's the footage I used.

A lot of things can't be covered here: the detailled building of the armature and the skinning of the mesh, the atmospheric perspective effect for the 3d elements, the egg disappearing at the beginning of the animation, many materials tips to increase the reality illusion, the painting of the textures and of the background mattes and so on.

Hopefully, in the future all this (and other) will be matter for a step by step book.
Have a good blending!

Links

The Embassy Visual Effects Inc., creators of the Citroen C4 Ad Campaign
Luxology article about the Embassy Citroen C4 Ad Campaign
C4 spot location in Vancouver
Audacity
VirtualDub
Modelling Bongo, poligonal modelling tutorial for Blender