Animation

Cloth

3D

Simulation

Singapore Ten Square - Visual Illusion

10. July 2023

A collaborative project between Ansbach University and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. The task was to design animated concepts for the 60-meter-high Ten Square Landmark of Good, a car vending building featuring a large digital billboard. Our goal was to create optical illusions that interact with the architecture and turn the facade into a living, animated experience.

Overview

The project was carried out as part of an international collaboration between Ansbach University and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Our objective was to design animations that create the illusion of depth and movement on the digital billboard of the Ten Square Landmark of Good. The 60-meter facade functions as a vertical car vending machine, making it a unique medium for large-scale visual storytelling.

The semester’s theme, Illusion in the Urban Jungle, aimed to merge the organic and the artificial — transforming the urban architecture into a stage for imaginative, optical illusions.

Version 1 - Action Figure Factory

The basic idea is to design the interior of the building as an action figure factory, depicting the production of a toy figure. The interior of the building should showcase the production process of a toy figure, with various processes visualized. In the upper section of the building, the assembly of a part of the figure should be presented, where a robot arm attaches the missing arm of the figure. The figure arrives hanging on a conveyor belt through an opening in the wall, where a robot arm then attaches its missing arm. Afterwards, the figure continues its movement and disappears again into an opening in the wall. To create a visual illusion, the conveyor belt with the figures is aligned to extend towards the viewer, giving the impression that the moving figures are coming out from inside the building. In the rear area of the building, additional figures also emerge horizontally on a conveyor belt from an opening in the ceiling, with their chests not yet painted. Here, another robot arm is used to spray the corresponding part appropriately. The fully painted figure then continues downward and disappears. To generate additional suspense, after a certain time, the complete figure is placed on a conveyor belt through another opening in the lower part of the wall. A slightly larger robot arm reaches for the figure, while previously descending from a forming ceiling opening. Finally, the figure is taken through the ceiling opening from which the arm previously descended, until it eventually disappears from view. Initial concepts of the idea were created for this purpose.

Concept

VARIATION 1
VARIATION 2

Arrangement

Modeling & Designing

ZBrush sculpt - toy figure base model

CLAY
COLORED

Toy packaging

Cloth Simulation & Rendering

Frame render

Baked image

Frame render

Baked image

Stills

Final still frame displayed on the Ten Square digital billboard in Singapore.

Version 2 - Slime Simulation

The idea is to design the facade of the building using various cubic forms that are initially not visible to the viewer. These forms gradually become visible as their outlines begin to glow from left to right, essentially being engraved or revealed. Inside the building, it now pulsates with light, while the resulting forms rotate randomly in different directions, either horizontally or vertically. However, some shapes remain fixed in place. After a while, the lighting fades, and simultaneously, the various shapes rotate back. Initial concepts of the idea were then created for this purpose.

Concept

First concepts with slime

Green color = Simulated particles with x-Particles for the slime 

Test render, does not yet show the final result

Green color = Simulated particles with x-Particles for the slime 

Test render, does not yet show the final result

Cloth Simulation & Rendering

Early test render of the Voronoi dynamics and collider interaction.

Voronoi simulation

Frame render

Baked image

Frame render

Baked image

Stills

Final still frame displayed on the Ten Square digital billboard in Singapore.

Challenges in Implementation:

Working with x-Particles proved to be very time-consuming as I had to conduct numerous simulations, which took a long time due to the high number of frames. Even small changes required restarting the entire simulation. Since I was still in the learning process for the plugin, there were some functions whose exact operation was unfamiliar to me. This led to a lot of trial and error and solving of smaller problems, as some aspects did not function as expected. Overall, I felt like I didn't have full control because I still have much to learn about the plugin. Similar challenges arose with Cinema 4D simulations. I also had to experiment and simulate extensively until I achieved the desired results, which consumed a significant amount of time.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed this project. The topic was very exciting and completely different from what I'm used to. The idea of creating an optical illusion using the facade was something I had never encountered before and was very intriguing to me. What I particularly liked was the fact that there were few restrictions, giving us a lot of creative freedom. The opportunity to learn and experiment with ZBrush was fantastic for me. However, it also brought some challenges. Learning ZBrush took a lot of time, as did experimenting and simulating with x-Particles. This was sometimes quite demanding and caused additional stress, especially because I initially wanted to create an additional animation, but unfortunately didn't have enough time in the end. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the project and was able to gain a lot of new experiences. I am satisfied with my result.

Tools used in this project

Cinema 4D

Octane Renderer

After Effects

Photoshop

Illustrator

Cinema 4D

Octane Renderer

After Effects

Photoshop

Illustrator

Cinema 4D

Octane Renderer

After Effects

Photoshop

Illustrator

Noted

Noted

Noted

Sci-Fi Short Film

Sci-Fi Short Film

Sci-Fi Short Film