The creative process started with modeling of the essential branding elements inside of blender—meticulous texturing work in Substance Painter. I worked on crafting detailed textures for the CACTI can, the CACTI billboard, and a unique rock formation modeled after the CACTI logo. By applying realistic materials and textures, I ensured that every element felt as premium and bold as the product itself.

Next, I dove into building the desert landscape using Unreal Engine’s landscape tools. I used Procedural Content Generation (PCG) tools, to capture the rugged beauty of a desert, I experimented with a wide variety of vegetation assets, fine-tuning the placement of vegetation like cacti, shrubs, and rocks. Each iteration of the landscape brought something new until I finally settled on the perfect, immersive desert setting. The landscape design aimed to reflect the essence of CACTI—wild, refreshing, and natural.

For the lighting, I focused on achieving realism through an HDRI workflow in Unreal Engine. By blending natural light with artistic direction, I created a stunning desert atmosphere. The lighting added depth and warmth to the entire scene, emphasizing the sun-kissed textures of the can, billboard, and landscape. The hero shot was carefully composed to highlight the CACTI can with the iconic billboard and rock formation as a powerful backdrop.

The cinematography of this project was an essential component in capturing the story and atmosphere. Using advanced camera features in Unreal Engine 5, I crafted six distinct shots:

TV Teleport Shot: The ad opens with a shot of a television, creating a portal that transports the viewer from the room into the vast, vivid desert.

Desert Showcase: A sweeping shot of the desert landscape, revealing the majestic beauty of the scene and setting the tone for the ad.

Meerkat Follow-Up Shot: The camera follows a curious meerkat, adding a touch of life to the scene, as it moves through the landscape toward the main product reveal.

CACTI Can Reveal: A reveal shot of the CACTI can framed as the meerkat finally comes close to cacti cans. This is where cacti cans and the whole desert landscape along side with the billboard comes in the frame.

Close-Up Shot: The camera zooms in on the CACTI can, focusing on the details of the texture, the gleaming logo, and then zooms into the billboard and focuses towards the cacti logo on it, from where it does a transition to cans cacti logo.

Closing Shot: A final, powerful scene, closing the hero shot of cacti cans and the entire desert landscape.

Throughout the cinematography, I utilized advanced camera features such as focal length adjustments, dirt masks, and depth-of-field techniques to create a cinematic, polished look.

After perfecting the scene and shots, I rendered the video in Unreal Engine 5 to capture every detail in stunning clarity. To bring the visuals to their full potential, I used DaVinci Resolve for color correction and post-processing. The final color grade ensured the final commercial felt rich and vibrant. I also did simple sound designing for the whole video in premier pro.

This project was a labor of creativity, blending advanced 3D modeling, PCG, cinematography, and post-production to deliver an ad that captures the essence of CACTI Hard Seltzer—bold, refreshing, and full of life.