Tronic Studio Rides the Wave for Hitachi

Tronic Studio Rides the Wave for Hitachi

Tronic Studio Rides the Wave for Hitachi

WIRED NextFest 2007 featured some 160 exhibits from scientists, researchers and inventors around the globe. Tronic was responsible for the architectural design, branding and signage, motion graphics and website components of the inaugural NextFest, in 2004, and has provided key creative for the hip, interactive technology event since. For the high-profile Hitachi pavilion, Tronic crafted an iconic large scale CNC wave sculpture and a two-minute branding video, to bring the water theme to life.

"When we heard NextFest was to be in Southern California this year and that Hitachi had an exciting 'moving mountains' project to bring crucial water to the LA Basin, we envisioned water as the theme for the Hitachi pavilion," recalls Vivian Rosenthal who co-founded Tronic Studio with Jesse Seppi in 2001

"People have the misconception that Hitachi is just an electronics giant, but it's a massive company working in areas from healthcare to infrastructure," says Rosenthal "The more we thought about the water thematic, the more convinced we were that it was a timely, flexible concept we could apply to the experiential and physical environment of the Hitachi pavilion and the branding video."

Water, Fluidity and Hitachi
Water's fluidity, and its' circulation patterns, lent itself to the design of the pavilion. "Circulation is a big part of architecture," notes Seppi, an architect by training and the project's lead designer.

The layout of our sculpture was both informed through our study of the floor plan and probable circulation pattern but also helped define it.

Blue-Tinted Waves, a Visual Beacon
Tronic's blue-tinted liquid sculpture became the pavilion's visual beacon, a "thread tying the entire experience together," says Seppi.

The fluid ribbon "captures the movement of water frozen in time," says Rosenthal, "and moves people through the space." The sculpture, the largest Tronic has yet designed, is suspended on nearly transparent piano wire from the tubular steel ring, which displays the Hitachi signage. "Everything echoes the formal aspect of the sculpture and frames it in a positive way -even the walls and tables were designed to support and complement it," Seppi notes.

Seppi used Next Limit Technologies' RealFlow water simulation software to craft the organic gesture of the sculpture and Autodesk's 3ds Max to refine its surface. The sculpture was made of high-density foam it was milled in segments, sprayed with a resin-based hard coat, sanded, primed and painted.

Two-Minute CG Video "Inspires the Next"
Behind the sculpture, extending outward over the wing of the pavilion walls was a cantilevered armature, which serves as the projection surface for the branding video created by Tronic. "The two-minute video plays on a large, hanging wall that echoes the design of the wave," Rosenthal explains. "Everything ties together: the sculpture, the products Hitachi is exhibiting, the video screen and the video."

The two-minute, fully-CG video, conceived and animated by Tronic, reinforces Hitachi's commitment to water and to its motto -clearly evident in its signage- "Inspire the Next." The video shows the transformative power of water, as a desert landscape becomes a futuristic city where everything is made of water and where Hitachi's myriad products - bullet trains, cars, auto parts, robots, and high- resolution screens - all play a central role.

"The city was rendered to appear to be made of water. It was a liquid environment that brought home the idea of clean water everywhere," Rosenthal points out.

Desert Sands Transformed
The video opens with expansive views of desert sand formations. A slight breeze begins to blow some of the sand away and builds to a tremendous sandstorm, which implodes causing the landscape of sand to be sucked into a large cube that hovers in an empty sky for a moment. The cube suddenly plummets to the ground, releasing liquid waves, which transform into a fluid life form against a white background.

The liquid gushes to fill an invisible container, which takes the form of a Hitachi water pump. It emits tubes of water, which in turn form other Hitachi products and infrastructure: a power plant, construction vehicles, liquid buildings, and a bullet train. The landscape continues to fill, becoming a cityscape with a liquid geodesic dome and skyscrapers.

Liquids swirl around Hitachi auto parts on a road; the liquids form the body of a futuristic car surrounding the parts still visible beneath the surface. A robot moves through rooms in a high-rise apartment. An object forms on the desktop - a futuristic computer monitor and server. The video closes with a very human note, a glimpse of the far end of the room where the liquid forms the outline of a child sleeping, dreaming of a Hitachi inspired future.

"It was a real challenge to create an entire landscape out of water," says Rosenthal. "The rendering and simulations needed to give form to something amorphous and to provide the level of detail that we wanted was very intense," adds Seppi.

Fortunately, it's now possible to create realistic fluid simulations outside Hollywood studios. RealFlow software, with its custom Python scripting, enabled Seppi and Tronic's animators to "get into the nitty- gritty detail of water dynamics" to craft the liquid city. The native Particle Flow system within 3ds Max was the perfect tool to build the arid desert landscape.

The merger of Tronic's strong design sensibilities across all media, the CG software available, and a visionary client and a large-scale CNC sculpture produced an unforgettable experience for WIRED NextFest visitors.

"Hitachi was really great to work with," Seppi reports. "They appreciated and understood our water-theme concept, and trusted us to design it and bring it to life."

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