Show the Unseeable

In many cases, visual storytelling allow you to show concepts that a human eye couldn’t actually see.

• Speed of events: the events take place at a pace which is too fast (or too slow) for the human eye.
• Inaccessible location/perspective: you can’t look inside a working jet engine nor can you see events that happen mid-air or underground
• Scale: Some events are too small (or too large) for us to perceive.
• Safety: Some views would put users at-risk to experience them. 

Describe an Experience that Can’t Be Seen . . . Yet

When the Dallas Cowboys built their New Stadium, they wanted to win the rights to a SuperBowl before the stadium existed. How do you showcase the potential SuperBowl game-day experience before the building has been built? You can’t just take a picture or make a movie of the stadium.

You have to rely on digital and visual storytelling tools to recreate the environment and generate the excitement. That’s what we did when we created the Dallas Cowboys’ digital animation of their new stadium.

Make an Abstract Concrete

Often, information comes from multiple sources: real world images, digital elements, databases. Visual storytelling allows companies to merge these datastreams and weave together a story.

Explaining Concepts

Visual storytelling can explain processes without a need for language (or where necessary languages can be localized). In many cases, the same immersive digital training environment can be used in the United States, Brazil and China–with only small changes for language and culture.

Guide a Viewer’s Focus

We’ve adopted a lot of techniques in print to guide a viewer’s focus–bolded section headers, bullet-lists, etc. However, it’s still easy to confuse a reader. Visual storytelling can guide a viewer’s perpective to the key elements that are important about a concept. For example, Neoscape created a 3D animation for William and Mary’s Mason School of Business.  It’s an excellent example of visual storytelling that allows users to see related elements–classrooms, offices, etc . . . because the animation guides the viewer through color-highlighting. You don’t have to be an architect to understand the blueprints.

There are simple analogies for each of these technologies–photographs, video, and video games.

Yet, when we talk about visual storytelling, these elements are often just a part of the overall solution. 

We can take real-world video, audio we recorded digitally in a recording studio, and information from a database. Then we  can layer all of these together to form a solution.

We can capture real-world events through cameras, microphones, and videocameras. Then, we transform it into a digital stream of “ones” and “zeros.” Then, it can be merged with any other digital datastream. On a simple level, it’s all just “ones” and “zeros” but the solutions can be amazing

When we conduct this exercise with people, very few people come close to the true answer. Our minds manage massive amounts of visual elements without strain. When we drive on a highway, we see thousands of objects at the same time. Some are stationary and others moving at high speed. Yet, we’re able to process this constantly changing information.

Why then, do we groan when we see spreadsheets filled with columns of figures and numbers? Again, our minds specialize at seeing. Most of us see without much conscious effort, but reading takes active, conscious effort.

Our eyes manage visual complexity all of the time. However, some forms of visual complexity actually overwhelm our conscious mind. That’s why a PowerPoint slide filled with 10 pt. text and 15 pictures overwhelms viewers during a presentation. It’s the difference between seeing and reading. When you ask your conscious mind to perform a task usually handled by the unconscious mind, it quickly becomes overwhelmed. The conscious mind cannot manage as many visual elements as the unconscious mind.

Now, let’s return to the image we presented in the last post. How many objects did you guess were in this rendering?

If you guessed like most people do, then you will probably be surprised by the actual number. There are at least 145 separate elements within the image. That number increases if you count the floorboards and ceiling joists separately. There are even more elements if you count the images on the television as separate elements. Then, if you add the number of trees in the background, there are several thousand unique objects in this image.

Below, you’ll see a 3D rendering that shows a room within a luxury property. Here’s what we’d like you to do. Read the instructions first, and then try out the activity for yourself.

• Scroll to the bottom of this page.
• Close your eyes.
• Open your eyes and look at the picture for just two seconds.
• Make your best guess of how many individual objects are within this rendering.
• Don’t take time to count. Just make a snap judgment.
• Record your answer somewhere.

How Many Objects Do You See in This Room?

We know the actual number of elements in the photo. We’ll answer the question in the next post.

You might say that the very early adopters of 3D technology were engineers and architects with computer-aided drafting (CAD) tools. Until the last decade, skyscrapers and bridges tended to be stiff and boxy designs, because people couldn’t perform the calculations necessary to design each component for a custom-fit. Architects such as Frank Gehry with the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Disney Concert Hall and Lord Foster London’s “Gherkin” (officially the 30 St. Mary’s Axe building) transformed architecture’s potential with their complex, curving steel and glass. Consider two focal points of the 2008 Beijing Olympics—the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. These complex shapes could only be designed through CAD programs.

Biochemists also used 3D modeling programs to search for new drug combinations and to test potential interactions with the human body. Yet, these back-office tools didn’t become common workplace tools. They were niche tools used by highly-trained people, while the rest of us plodded along with standard office software, a web-browser, and some cool apps like Flickr and YouTube.

However, most truly disruptive technologies years of behind-the-scenes effort before they launch into the limelight. Partly this has been a matter of cost. For many years, you needed supercomputers or ultra-high-end graphic cards to generate 3D images. Within the last decade, this technology has become commonplace desktop and even laptop hardware.

The other barrier has been education. Previously, modeling tools required formal training—scientists, architects, 3D modelers using specialized programs that take years. Cutting-edge 3D tools will always require specialized tools, but very soon you will be able to create 3D images on your own without any formal training. It’ll be nearly as simple as using your digital camera and uploading pictures onto a website like Flickr or a video onto YouTube.

However, you don’t need to be a multinational CEO, COO, or CMO. You could work within these companies in any functional role—marketing, training, operations, research and development, etc. By reading this blog, you’ll be become conversant with cutting-edge technologies. You’ll learn a new way of solving business challenges through 3D visual tools. When you’re meeting with your team, you’ll be able to differentiate yourself, because you won’t be offering “more of the same” solutions that seem to struggle. You can also share this blog with your leadership so they understand what you’re discussing.

Yet, if you’re part of a smaller company, you have an advantage. You can read the blog, absorb its message, and put it to practice quickly. That’s the advantage of smaller businesses. You don’t need to form a dozen committees to rewrite the corporate strategy and processes. Eventually, the largest businesses will catch up—but there’s an advantage to being an agile, small business. You have an opportunity to outmaneuver (and outshine) larger competitors.

At Heartwood Studios, we recently created a video for ITT’s Force Protection division. While the video contains VFX and animations, it also contains digital photographs and live video to explain the problem of RF Fratricide. 

If you’ve used a cell phone, you’ve had moments where you can’t hear what the other person is saying. But those “can-you-hear-me-now?” moments can mean the difference between life and death in warfighting situations. So, ITT called on Heartwood Studios to tell the story visually. Here’s a link to the full video on YouTube.

ITT Interference Mitigation System

We can take the principles of 3D interactive games and apply them to training environments. Here’s an example that Heartwood Studios recently created for Raytheon through its C2Act training platform. 

• PC-based training environment that trains installations, maintenance and repair, and operations;
• Allows large-scale rollouts with no additional materials; and
• Reduces the risk of injury to individuals and damage to high-value equipment.

Here’s a link to the full video on YouTube.

C2Act Interactive Training Platform

Some of these tools have been available for years, but they were too costly for a company to apply to everyday business problems. Now, computing power costs less. Researchers within academia and research labs have created new ways to harness this power to allow us to show rather than just tell.

Both of us, Neil and Raj, have had a chance to work with cutting-edge researchers within the digital space. We know that before these digital tools become family-based, they’re going to be adopted by businesses. 

Over the past five years, we’ve worked with cutting-edge academics and researchers. We’ve delivered digital animations and interactive solutions to forward-thinking clients. Sometimes, our projects begin with a “what if” question. That question sometimes comes from one of our team members or even our clients.  Along the way, we’ll share their success stories. We’ll show you that no matter who you are, what you think possible through digital technology will soon change. The change isn’t decades away. It’s already begun.

Our argument is, on the surface, very simple. Businesses and consumers have been living in text-based worlds with few visuals and little interactivity. We’re like Edwin Abbott’s Flatlanders, who live trapped in a two-dimensional world. We go through our days unaware that our perspective will soon expand. It will change noth our workplace and our home lives.

• How companies market and sell—to businesses(B2B), governments (B2G), and customers (B2C);
• How companies train employees and how schools teach children;
•  How we measure behaviors—in marketing and training;
•  What  consumers will expect from retailers; and
• How employees and consumers access on-demand help.

This transformation will certainly occur. It’s driven by a combination of many factors—both technological and psychological.