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MICHAEL POTTS: Hello, I'm Michael Potts.
I'm vice president of design at The Weather Channel.
And here at The Weather Channel, we
have a constant goal of storytelling
about science, about the weather,
and about climate in ways that are meaningful to our audience.
The Weather Channel is a pioneer.
We delighted weather fans with our augmented reality
explainers in 2015 and then showed
the world the power of storm surge
in 2018 with a powerful, immersive, mixed reality
experience.
So we turned the corner again and invested
in the future, 24/7 virtual weather presentation 365
days a year all done live.
And to do this, we tapped into the experts
here at The Weather Channel.
We worked with our partners at Myreze and Zero Density.
But these stories are best told by those
that brought them to life.
So here, please enjoy.
NICK WEINMILLER: We had a lot of success with these IMRs
that we were creating like Storm Surge
where we have the talent standing on the silver circle,
and the water is going crazy around them.
And our plan from the beginning was
to have that silver circle as part of the virtual studio
design.
And we wanted to take that circle
and incorporate it into whatever studio we were going to build.
So we knew that that would be a key component.
And with the virtual studio, we wanted it to feel expansive,
but we didn't want it to feel like an empty warehouse.
So there are a lot of items and tricks
we did to try to pull in the outside environment
into the studio like bringing in these rock boulder
textures and this glass and water feel around.
REMI VAAGE: Myreze used the Unreal Blueprint
system to create 3D charts and external
feeds to drive animated mixed reality weather
elements within the studio.
With the click of a button, the presenter
can bring up a 100-foot monitor.
And with this 3D virtual globe, we
can show whether data on a global scale literally.
Unreal's flexibility allow The Weather Channel
to create special segments like their amazing coverage
on NASA's Mars Rover as seen here
with the globe easily replaced by a model of the Red Planet.
We used Unreal's layered material system
to greatly increase the fidelity within the studio,
adding more variation and realism to every scene.
This allowed us to create high quality materials
quickly and effectively.
Now, as dynamic as the studio's interior is,
its exterior can be equally as active.
The virtual half of the studio features a glass wall
that serves as a window into our virtual environment that
can be transformed into a wide variety of locations
and weather scenarios to really bring
the viewer into The Weather Channel's world.
Here to talk about this incredible feature, here's
Alberto Crespo, principle VFX designer
at The Weather Channel.
ALBERTO CRESPO: So the goal was to make
every one of these cities look photorealistic.
So we sent a photographer to photograph the entire country.
Each photo had to meet a very strict criteria.
Furthermore, every virtual view had
to be made to be under any weather
condition in any season.
This means every city had to have
multiple versions plus a custom-made weather condition
for every single city.
The magical moment for me was moving the camera
through this photo realistic scene with the trees blowing
in the wind and the weather conditions
of my choosing in a completely fake environment.
REMI VAAGE: Here at Myreze, we're
big fans of the Unreal Engine, and we've
been using it to craft immersive experiences for some years now.
For The Weather Channel, we designed the entire studio
in Unreal.
It provided a great workflow for us
as members of The Weather Channel team located in Atlanta
could remotely enter the studio as it was being built.
When it comes to airing live mixed reality
broadcasts every day, the Unreal Engine's real-time graphics
technology provides an amazing solution
for rendering complex weather phenomenon.
We can create mathematical formulas
to drive graphics in real time and allow The Weather
Channel to control countless variables when
creating visual models.
Having so much control over their live virtual scenes
and the ability to collaborate so effectively around the world
is a major advantage to this technology.
To give more insight into The Weather Channel's
incredible software integration, here's Andrew Maloof.
ANDREW MALOOF: Zero Density has several applications
involved that all come together to a single workflow.
You have the Reality Engine, which
renders off the animations as very powerful image-based keyer.
You have the editing application that the designers
work through with the latest version of Unreal.
And we actually worked well together
with Zero Density creating the application Reality Hub,
and this allowed users to be able to pull
API data from our weather sources
and apply them to different elements within our projects.
SPEAKER: Here to speak about the technology behind the graphics
platform is Onur Gulenc from Zero Density.
ONUR GULENC: The Weather Channel project
is outstanding for many reasons.
They have pushed the boundaries of live television and weather
presentation.
They define this project as 24/7 virtual weather presentation,
and we are proud to be able to provide this kind of stability
with our certified configuration to The Weather Channel.
When they were at the early stages of preparations
for their project, we were also at the early stages
of developing our next generation control
application, Reality Hub.
And when we showed them the prerelease version
and shared the vision of the product
with The Weather Channel, they wanted
to adapt it for production.
And their feedback and requests helped
us shape the initial roadmap of Reality Hub,
and the project became a benchmark
that I show to almost every industry
professional I talk with.
And I state that this is the level that you can achieve
in live production today.
RUSS AARON: In the traditional physical studio space,
there are a limited number of places
where we can shoot talent and where they can present weather
to our audience.
In the virtual world, that almost becomes limitless.
And there's still factors that we have to keep in mind, ,
lighting and camera positions, camera blocking,
but it's really changed the way that we've done that.
Now we have the opportunity to make moves
that we haven't been able to do before because of almost
an unlimited amount of space.
One of the things that we've been able to take advantage of
is the techno crane, and that allows
us to move around in a much bigger space
and give us many more camera angles that we haven't
been able to use before.
STEVE FAHEY: We discovered that we
needed an additional operator to bring up monitors and advance
the graphic and have that happen in conjunction with the camera
blocking and the way the talent moved
and what they were saying to really bring it
to life for the audience.
The control room team did a really good job working
with this advanced technology and with the talent
to make sure we could make it relatable to the audience
but still show off what a great tool this is for us.
MICHAEL POTTS: So how do we keep expanding what we do?
We leverage technology.
If we can dream it, the audience can see it.
But it's really only possible through the power
of our partnerships and the power of our people.
And now we're turning another corner with virtual production
24/7, 365 days a year, all done live.
So I thank you for your time.
I hope you enjoyed this story that's
a never-ending one for us at The Weather
Channel and our partners.
Thank you.
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