A wave of colourful balls seems to slosh through the New York store of fashion brand Zara in this CGI animation by motion designer Shane Fu, which has accumulated more than 17 million views online.
The video, which was commissioned by Zara and shared on the brand's TikTok, was widely believed to be showing a real LED window display similar to the 3D billboards popular in China and South Korea.
But in reality, the simulation exists only on the internet.
Shane Fu's animation shows a wave of colourful balls in a shop window
"People are gullible and think it is real or some sort of physical installation," Fu told Dezeen. "It's just a video that's meant to be shared on social media."
To create the animation, Fu visited Zara's Soho location where he filmed a slow pan of the storefront. Using 3D software, he created the illusion of a three-dimensional room unfurling behind the windows, inhabited by a swarm of rainbow-coloured spheres.

 

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Fu posted the video on his Instagram while Zara shared it on TikTok
"I used lighting references from the location," he explained, mimicking the conditions on-site to make the animation as lifelike as possible.
The final illusion was so convincing that some viewers went to visit the store to see the non-existent display in person.
"It got me down there," one user commented. "T...