Pixel Circus creates the advert for the UK launch of the Eagles "Long Road Out Of Eden" album,

Pixel Circus create the launch of the Eagles "Long Road Out of Eden" album on MSN

20th November 2007- The "Long Road Out of Eden" album is the first studio album from The Eagles in 28 years. Billed as the greatest band in the world the client required a special advertisement on the Microsoft MSN UK homepage to promote the albums desert artwork.

Pixel Circus, as Microsoft Approved Vendors ,were tasked to create a fluid animation that blended seamlessly with the albums artwork, this was to include a realistic animated sandstorm that linked the banners and video content together. We drew on our expert knowledge in the fields of internet advertising and special effects to bring the album's desert artwork, around which the digital campaign is constructed, to life!

The main 'superbanner' grabs the visitors attention with its animated message as a whirlwind of sand sweeps over the live MSN page into the embedded multiple purpose unit, forming the copy. Once activated, the second of three banners floods the homepage in a whirlwind of desert sand, forming dunes which make up the backdrop against which the video trailer is played out.

The Pixel Circus team faced many interesting challenges because of the varied physical aspects of desert sand. This provided us with many complex technicalities including of the creation of a wispy dust cloud sweeping lightly across the interface, to the extraordinary sandstorm which floods the main page. The effects provided were built in a life-like manner, with over 1,000,000 grains of sand required for the main vortex. Our custom particle system used 4 main wind systems to control the movement of the grains, and a further 700,000 particles were needed to form the dunes themselves.

Rendering took six separate passes, including an all important beauty pass, allowed maximum control over the composition in post production. This meant our effects could be seamlessly matched in with the original album artwork.

Our client was very pleased with the results and the final page was viewed by over 10 million people on the day of release.