60-second 3D product animation that explains a lock most people never knew existed
A 60-second 3D product animation that explains a lock most people don’t even know is there - and makes its absence the whole point.
Apexx Strato secures the most vulnerable point on a bank ATM — the top hatch. Cosmonavt's job was to make that invisible piece of hardware legible in one minute.
“Todor and Ivena at Cosmonavt are very easy to work with. [...] The video was planned, and you see each step of the way. ”
★★★★★ 5.0 Verified on Clutch · Marketing Manager, dormakaba · June 2026 · Quality 5.0 · Schedule 5.0 · Cost 5.0
A script, product photos, and a framework to stand on.
Dormakaba’s Marketing Manager needed three things from the video: to introduce a new product, to explain and show how it works, and to position it within a larger security platform. The product was Apexx Strato a keyless Bluetooth lock engineered to secure the ATM top hatch against jackpotting and unauthorised service-key access.
This brief did not require artistic expression as much as motion design with purpose and intention. Dormakaba supplied a full script, plus a list of constraints Cosmonavt studio had to consider during production of the 60-second 3D product animation: no cinematic tone, no implication that Strato secures cash, no OEM-specific ATM modelling, no visuals that could read as a vault-opening sequence. Security-sensitive language about jackpotting had to remain intact, word for word.
Cosmonavt’s job was to take a precise brief and make Strato easy to understand and as realistic as possible — while ticking the box next to every single constraint.
01 — WORKING FROM REAL HARDWARE
Dormakaba sent the inside of a real ATM. The model had to match it exactly.
To get the lock right, Dormakaba’s team supplied Cosmonavt with detailed reference photography of Apexx Strato installed inside an actual ATM enclosure — the bracket, the mounting peg, the panel it sits behind — along with direct technical instructions on how the lock attaches and operates.
This level of detail of the source material mattered — it needed to be transferred over to the animation. Working from STEP files and a real reference rather than a generic asset library meant the model could capture exact details: the latch geometry, the mount orientation, the panel that hides the bracket unless it’s pulled out. The kind of details a security engineer reviewing the final promotional video would notice if they were wrong.
02 — FEEDBACK & REVIEW
Previz, animation, motion graphics, materials & textures — each stage told the Dormakaba team what to expect.
Early in animation, Dormakaba’s team flagged that the lock’s orientation in the 3D scene didn’t match the real mounting position. The correction came back marked up directly on a render frame — the correct path for the lock and the incorrect mount to remove.
This is what hardware-accurate product content looks like in practice: revision rounds aren’t about colour or pacing, they’re about whether the engineers building the product would trust it.
Photo provided by Dormakaba
3D STEP file from Dormakaba’s engineering team and materials and texturing from Cosmonavt
03 — THE ANIMATION
Sixty seconds. One product. Zero unnecessary motion.
04 — PROCESS
Dream. Design. Deliver. — applied to a hardware product.
STEP 1 — DREAM
Visual concept & script
Style, movement, colour, and material direction agreed against dormakaba’s were referenced upon a video before any 3D work began.
STEP 2 — DESIGN
3D build & composition
STEP file conversion, environment setup, and texturing were built directly from client-supplied reference photography of the real hardware.
STEP 2 — DESIGN
Structured review rounds
Engineering-level feedback is incorporated at each stage — including the mount correction shown above. Two revision rounds total.
STEP 3 — DELIVER
Sound design & final render
Layered sound effects, colour grading and compositing, delivered in 1080p H.264 with full source file handover.
RESULTS
What a 60-second 3D product animation did for Dormakaba.
“The video increased the client’s LinkedIn visibility and was used by sales teams at promotional events. Cosmonavt followed the client’s brand style and internal guidelines to deliver a video that met all expectations.”
★★★★★ 5.0 Verified on Clutch · Marketing Manager, Dormakaba · June 2026
A lock nobody knew was there. A video that made sure the right people did.
“Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better.”
Apexx Strato is designed to be invisible in daily use — a security upgrade most bank customers will never see or think about. Cosmonavt’s job was the opposite: make the invisible understandable, in 60 seconds, without breaking a single constraint on a video brief that had to comply with both marketing goals and engineering accuracy. The result is a 3D product animation precise enough to survive scrutiny from the people who built the product, and clear enough to do real work in dormakaba’s marketing and sales efforts.
Need to explain a technical product without losing the people who understand it best?
From brief to finished 3D product animation.
