The Mysterious Pearl 3D Theme Park Ride by Mark Boey

Bronze Movie, Video and Animation Design · 2020

The Mysterious Pearl 3D Theme Park Ride

by Mark Boey

A' Design Award 2020 Bronze Winner in Movie, Video and Animation Design
Awarded April 15, 2020
CLIENT: Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park
Estimated Number of Design Views: 20,462
Verification code 57DFB990A5 · Verify this award

Visit Site View at A' Design Award

Get a Badge

About The Mysterious Pearl 3D Theme Park Ride

The Mysterious Pearl is a 3D theme park ride created for an ocean park in Shanghai, China. The ride combines an eight-minute stereoscopic animated film with a moving vehicle. The story follows a mermaid and a family of sea creatures on a quest to save the world. Each ride vehicle includes seven special effects, such as vertical drops and horizontal motions, repeated in time with the animation. Characters and animation were created in Maya, effects in Houdini, and compositing in After Effects and Flame.

Press Kit

Unique Properties: Mermaid is a 3D immersive experience located at Haichang Ocean Park theme park in Shanghai, China. Untitled Studios was approached by Haichang to design and create a fully immersive 3D experience based on the story of a mermaid and her quest to save the world.
During the creative process, we refined the characters of Mermaid and the ride's sea creature family, as well as creating the environmental background of the 8-minute animated universe.
Guests are transported into a state of the art 4D film that, along with surprising sensory elements, propels them into the ultimate 'Mermaid ride' experience.
The experience becomes even more immersive with the creation of a uniquely designed ride, each equipped with seven different special effects that repeat numerous times in tandem with the 3D animation, including vertical drops and horizontal motions!
Dimensions & Packaging: Stereoscopic 3d, 48fps, 12 scenes dimensions HD to 8k resolution. Digital Dolby.
Tags: theme park, dark ride, animation, immersive, 4d ride
Production Technology: All character design and animation are created in Maya, and all effects are created using Houdini.
Compositing are created in After effects and Flame.
Design Challenge: The biggest challenge about this job is scale and timeframe.
The entire animation had to be created within six months of production.
Not only that, everything had to be done in stereoscope 3d at 48 per frame with a resolution at 8k. Managing data is one of the biggest issue we never even thought of. What we learned from it. Always optimise working files, very bytes counts in the end.
Project Duration: Jan 2019 - Present in Shanghai China
Operation Flow: Theme park ride experience. Taking moving image to the 4th dimension.
Research: There’s only a handful of theme park in the world. The biggest and the best is Disney. Competing with such a big brand is challenging. Our method is start from the basic, storytelling and character design. We knew getting this 2 formula right is important. Technology is the second part that we need to overcome. Finding the right company as partners is just as important. We believe in collaboration.
Inspiration: The inspiration comes from watching Pixar and Disney. When I was young I was fascinated with storytelling and animation. I love 3d character that can take you on a journey and explore the magical world. Mixing with roller coaster and storyline would give you the audience a whole new immersive experience.