How to create an illusion of a full-size Porsche coming out of an elevator shaft?

Bauer Media Outdoor has upgraded OSL with a number of new large-format LED surfaces.

One of the most exciting surfaces – The Tower – is the elevator shaft at the intersection of Pier North and Pier East. This is covered by a high-resolution LED screen that is over 8 meters high, 2.4 meters deep, and 4.8 meters wide. A Porsche Macan is a little over 4.7 m long, so what better way than to create an illusion of the car coming up out of the elevator shaft in 1:1 size, lifted by a robot arm.

Configurator

Porsche has an advanced online configurator that allows you to customize a Macan exactly as you want it. We came up with a concept for the LED surface where the car comes in, we show some color choices, and the car changes color a few times before it disappears again. A QR code gives you a link where you can try this yourself with your phone.

By using what is called deep screen technology, or forced perspective, if you stand in the right place, a “sweet spot,” it will appear as if the car is 3D and comes out of the screen.

Vi gjorde en befaring på stedet, dokumenterte folks bevegelsesmønstre og analyserte kameravinkler i 3D for å komme frem til beste plassering for dette stedet.

We did a site recce, documented people’s movement patterns, and analyzed camera angles in 3D to find the best placement for this location.Detaljert digital modell

Porsche delivered a very detailed 3D model of an electric Macan. We have adapted this with materials, rigged it for animation, and attached it to a 3D robot arm. We also use some extra tricks to sell the illusion. We establish the scene with some black frames, which we then deliberately intersect. In addition, the 3D animation is lit with a physical light recording (so-called HDRI) that we created from the middle of the staircase next to the elevator shaft. This means that the car receives the same light that is on the actual location, and it mirrors details such as the large window surfaces, or the grid pattern in the ceiling. All this helps to sell the illusion and make it an eye-catcher.

The animation concludes with real films of the Porsche Macan, and a call to action to get the audience to scan the QR code.

Other outputs

In addition to the animation, we also delivered simpler animations for other 2D-LED surfaces, and a version of the elevator shaft animation for a very geographically focused (OSL) social media campaign. These were produced with the same 3D assets.