The Brief:
To create an interactive and engaging exhibition stand concept that highlighted SSE’s involvement in the Doggerbank Wind Farm project and allowed users to ‘Sign up for Change’
Challenges right out the gate
As part of this project, SSE wanted to create a to-scale digital recreation of the proposed Doggerbank Wind Farm due to difficulty they were having in filming the site itself.
The combined size of this installation will be nearly 1,500km2 in total, quite the size to recreate faithfully in 3D. Also, as this was out at sea, I had to come up with some solution to address water simulation, a difficult nut to crack for even the biggest of VFX studios.
In addition, multiple stands were requested in various formats and sizes so the campaign could be utilised beyond the COP26 conference.
Finally, the stand had to include an interactive element, this being a way for users to sign their name so that it might be engraved on the turbines themselves before being placed.
A good start
My first task was to concept the stand itself. To accommodate the requirements from the client, a three screen design was agreed upon that would allow a primary viewing area for the animation and content, an interactive point for users to sign and a display board for those signatures.
LED panels were chosen for the primary display so that a large, curved area could be utilized to display the primary messaging, drawing users to stand itself. This also meant that, for the other stand sizes, we could use less or more of the square panels to achieve the same effect, reducing the need to find additional hardware for each variation.
With these hardware requirements decided, I was able to specify computer hardware required to run it and get that hardware ordered. So far so good right?
The first hurdles
We received CAD models of the Haliade-X turbines directly from GE in America, however it was soon apparent that these would not be suitable for use due to their complexity.
After speaking with their CAD designer directly, I was able to find a good middle ground for me to work on and simplify for use within Cinema 4D. One problem down.
Next was the water simulation. My initial attempts to utilise noise maps to create waves did not result in a pleasing aesthetic, think more cloth blanket in the wind rather than natural waves. A true water simulation was out of the question at this scale so instead I sourced a plugin that used a preset simulation to create waves. This meant no complex, costly simulation and allowed us to quickly prototype animations to the client.
Hot4D Plugin Water Simulation Test
A major problem
The stand designs were finalized, the hardware had been tested and worked great, deliveries had been booked and an installation team was ready to head up to Glasgow.
Everything was going great until it became very apparent that our in-house hardware would be weeks late at rendering the final animation at the level of quality and detail required.
The problem? The water. Whilst the simulation alleviated any need for complex calculations of movement, the amount of wave detail combined with natural light bounces was creating a glittering mess during rendering. Too few samples resulted in the denoising removing every detail from the water, but putting them up to acceptable levels meant it would take literal weeks to render the entire thing at 4K.
I now had to find a way of getting this finished in time. Luckily my personal knowledge of computer hardware meant I knew there were render farms dedicated to high end renders. Ensuring it supported our render engine, Octane, and the water plugin was crucial and one was quickly found and tested. With everything lined up, the render farm worked away whilst we slept and we had our final animation.
One last thing
With everything finally rendered, that was it, right?
Unfortunately it became apparent that there had been errors in the render process and random frames had lost synchronisation with the simulation data causing ships and waves to jump randomly. Enlisting the help of our video editor, I instructed him to find each broken frame so that I could render them individually on our local hardware. One late night push, and multiple video formats later, the content was finished ready for its debut.
The Result
The stand proved to be a huge success, with politicians and celebrities lining up for photo opportunities to show themselves signing up for change.
The animation was shown across SSE’s social media and even on the outside SSE’s office in Glasgow. They even received a letter from the Prime Minister afterwards! As for us, this project won us an Award of Excellence at the 2022 Communicator Awards to add to our collection.
The final chapter of this project was revisiting it some months later. Having been frustrated with the issues encountered during the project, I had spent some time researching alternate ways we could have accomplished them. The result was my first foray into Unreal Engine and an entire recreation, complete with accurate turbine layout, was created in just a day. SSE agreed to an update after seeing the much improved version. But the best part? It was rendered in just 15 minutes.