Part 1: Pre‑production Planning and 3D Modeling Workflow for the FoxFriend App Promotional Video

FoxFriend is a youth‑focused social app, and the promotional video aims to highlight the “expand my social circle” impression while showcasing app features.

Initial concept sketches explored emotional story scenes, combining functional and mood‑driven ideas; however, the first drafts were too literal, so a second, more abstract set of sketches was created using modern symbols such as selfie sticks, envelopes, chat bubbles, and light‑bulb reminders.

These abstract illustrations convey that diverse people and objects can appear in FoxFriend, reinforcing the message “download FoxFriend, expand my social circle.” The design then moved to the modeling stage.

In modeling, a simple base human mesh is built first, then subdivided to add detail. The model uses low‑poly geometry; hair and clothing are treated as cloth, so thickness is added only during rendering. After modeling, objects are merged, unnecessary subdivisions removed, and the model is exported as an OBJ file without materials, then uploaded to Mixamo for rigging and exported as an FBX animation.

Back in Cinema 4D, the rigged model can be animated to match the scene. When merging materials, the U~F shortcut selects faces, and U~L selects edge loops; quadrilateral faces are preferred over triangles for better results.

Hair motion is achieved by applying a cloth tag to the hair mesh, adding thickness, and using a particle‑wind dynamics simulation to create a floating effect.

Rendering is performed with Octane. The lighting setup includes a main key light and two fill lights with intensities of roughly 90 %, 65 % and 15 %, placed opposite each other; adjustments are made per scene. Materials are created by sampling colors from the concept sketches, and a subtle emission is added to improve translucency.

After rendering, the images are color‑graded in Photoshop to produce the final cover visuals.

The overall workflow described above constitutes Part 1; character modeling and further Octane rendering will be covered in the next part.