Santa Monica, California-based COMPUTERCAFE recently created a pair of 3D animated characters for two new spots for Nerf. In "BallZooka," a boy is pitted against a towering wrestler who looks like he could tear him limb from limb, but he uses his BallZooka, a motorized toy capable of rapidly firing Nerf balls, to pin his opponent to the canvas. In "Power Clip/Wildfire," another boy, armed with a Nerf Power Clip DX 100 Blaster, unleashes a barrage of foam darts that helps him defeat his silver super-speedy foe. "We love the challenge of creating full CGI characters then animating and integrating them into live action background plates, especially plates that involve specific interaction with a live actor," said COMPUTERCAFE art director Ron Honn. "These spots offered both in that we designed the characters and animated them to interact with the kids." Software packages used in the production included NewTek Lightwave and the character animation software tools of Project Messiah. Compositing included the use of both Adobe After Effects and Eyeon Software's Digital Fusion. The spot was produced for New York advertising agency rotter . kantor, inc.