Head In the Clouds

The Problem

Currently, oil companies spend a fortune on building their image up, using phrases such as “natural gas” accompanied with green hills, windmills, and smiling people in their advertising. Unfortunately, this provides a false image to consumers, not showing the true face of what the company and its effects look like.
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Objective

To design a Climate Change Advocacy poster to give viewers a chance to “see through” their advertising campaign to discover what lies underneath.

Screengrab from Exxon's "Carbon Capture" Commercial

Research

Recent and ongoing studies have shown that oil companies spend millions of dollars every year giving misleading or false images about their effect on the environment. According to The Guardian, “Over roughly the last three decades, five major US oil companies have spent a total of at least $3.6bn on advertisements – not counting their investments in public relations programs like sponsored beach clean-ups, or their influence through trade associations, dark money groups and campaign donations.”
Source: The Guardian

The "Real Face" of Big Oil

Audience

Designed for UW Students, commuters, and oil consumers

Purpose

To promote awareness through a harsh, apocalyptic poster to generate interest and inquiry about oil companies vs. Climate Change.

Blocking out the Scene

Whenever I’m working in 3D, I block out the scenes with basic shapes to get the camera angle and composition I want. Elements will be roughly substituted in position for the shapes, and a general two-point lighting will be used.
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Element Addition

Next, I want to model out basic building elements that can be duplicated across the scene. Work smarter, not and harder!

Blocking Out the Scene without Textures

Simulated Oil Spill with Realflow

Texturing

After the buildings are done, I added point lights for individual windows, and created the smooth textures for the buildings.

Volumetric Smoke and Liquid

For the effects, I used Houdini to make a 120 frame smoke simulation. From there, I duplicated the smoke and transformed the .vbd volume in order to create clouds and atmospheric effects. Although the water texture is a still frame, the oil spilling out on top was created with RealFlow.

Color Correction

Rendering out a 4400x6000 image(!) overnight, I went over to photoshop to give the image higher dynamic range and correct some spots that were too dark.
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Post

Finally, I added grime and dust to the image, as well as some other simulated effects such as sparks, atmospheric glow, and a final beauty color correction pass to achieve the image I wanted.

Final composited composition (volumetrics removed)

-A poster is a thousand words (but not actually 1000 words to read on the page). 👀
Sometimes, the fewer words on the page, the more the poster conveys a message. Posters are seen in the blink of an eye, so not everyone needs a 5 paragraph essay on why they should follow your message.

-Heirarchy is king in the world of posters. 👑
Poster Design's hierarchy generates interest and pulls viewers in. As the viewer gets closer, they will be able to unpack more and more details and obtain a greater interest and grasp on the message that is conveyed.

-Fix it in post. 🩹
In the world of 3D, render times happen over long periods of time. When on a tight deadline, often times it is better to fix small errors when the image is done rendering, rather than cancelling the render mid-way to delete an artifact in the image. Magic healing brush works wonders!

Additional Details

Project Context
Visual Communication Design, 3D Design
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Client
Annabelle Gould
DESIGN 376: Advanced Typography
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Duration
3 weeks
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Programs used
Cinema 4D, Octane Render, Photoshop, Illustrator, Houdini, Realflow

Thank you!

Other work: