Creating a texture and animation of a mascot for Yandex Search
We were tasked with creating the texture and animation of a character for integration into the weather forecast segment on a national TV channel. The client provided a base model ("blank") of the mascot, and our job was to animate it. Each animation consisted of a transition pose and the main weather-specific animation.
When the presenter announced the weather, the mascot would move from the transition pose into the relevant animation, then return seamlessly to the original pose — allowing smooth looping.
We began with rigging the character.
After rigging, we moved to animation. The animations were created in Blender and then exported via Alembic to Cinema 4D, where a specialist applied the texture.
We also branded the mascot's props and aligned them with the animations.
Below is a brief overview of the fur texturing process. We had to replicate the mascot’s fur based on references, fine-tuning parameters such as fur count, length, strand thickness, color spot density, and placement.
We also added lightning and clouds in After Effects and used stock footage for snow particles.
Finally, all animations — except for the intro — start and end with the same pose to maintain seamless transitions between clips.
