Burton Snowboards came to Dreamlike Pictures with a huge business problem disguised as an engineering one. The snowboard industry had spent three decades failing to crack a step-in binding for soft boots, and Burton needed to pre-sell a revolution before they committed to the daunting capital commitment of physically making any.
Before Burton’s Step-On binding hit a single ski shop, it needed to tour the world. They needed a working simulation precise enough to stand in for the real thing at global dealer presentations, during a make-or-break moment for the entire snowboard category. This is the story of how a product that didn’t yet exist, convinced 800 dealers to believe in it, and pre order it. Built entirely from engineering data and the kind of 3D photoreal animation work most studios never get the chance to do.
The services here span high-end visualization, technical animation, and strategic product storytelling for the action sports and consumer goods industries. Burton’s Step-On is now the benchmark. If you have a product that needs to earn trust before it ships, we can help.
We are experienced 3D animators with the worlds leading software MAYA, but don’t get a lot of clients who need this level of expertise.
We received a call from Burton “We need a company that can do both very high end 3D animation and import engineering data from our IBM Catia CAD system.” (We can).
In the last six years they had spent millions to crack the code. To be sure their latest investment in tooling, testing and distribution would work, Burton wanted to ‘pre-sell’ the idea before they made the massive manufacturing commitment in a revolutionary, unproven idea.
Burton wanted to ‘pre sell their product – before it ever existed. They asked us to work with their R & D dept., to create a photorealistic working 3D animation model of their idea from their engineering data. The goal was to take it around the world to their 800 dealer network to see if they would commit to buying – before they could touch it.
Today, a few years later, Burton ‘STEP-ON’ binding is the standard and helped to revive the snowboard industry worldwide.
