Every year, during the dark pre-winter days of November, Dutch city Eindhoven is made a little brighter by Light Festival GLOW. During this festival, which lasts about a week, 30 "light projects" from light artists all around the world are scattered across the city centre and accessible for free. At GLOW 2017, Blendergrid helped in the creation of one of these projects :)
Glow 2017
The festival enjoyed about 740,000 visitors this year. The theme of GLOW 2017 was "The Source", referring to the source of light. Eindhoven has been a source of light for the whole world since the founding of the match factory in 1870 and the light bulb factory Philips in 1891.
Projection Mapping Project
One of the projects of GLOW 2017 was using a technique called projection mapping, where instead of a regular screen/canvas, light is projected onto real life elements. Projection mapping has gained popularity over the years as projectors got cheaper and brighter. Also, the software tools available now to warp your art around the shape of anything you want, have gotten a lot better.
The main artists of this projection mapping project were Dirk Poppel, Jan Fabel and Erwin Steijlen. They had the impressive task to create a 6 minute long animation that would be projected onto "The Blob", a futuristic building in Eindhoven that was designed by the Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas. The resulting animation was created 100% in Blender. Many people agreed it was the highlight of the festival, and when projected onto this huge building, it was quite indeed impressive to look at:
GLOW Eindhoven "Blob The Bulb"
Rendering
To make sure the project could be finished in time for the festival, Dirk Poppel sent all his 4K Blender scenes to Blendergrid to have them rendered:
Definitely, without Blendergrid, the creative process would be way too slow. Just like with sports, you have to be in a "flow" while you're creating something like this. Also, the possibility to work in full color, over 4K resolution with loads of Cycles rendering has been a lifesaver. The quality had to be really high, with lots of details when you're projecting at a size like this. Fortunately the crowd (740,000 visitors) loved it. This is not something that's been done a lot in the world of 3D mapping!
I hope you enjoyed the video, and the fact that Blender is being used for these kinds of projects. If you also have a large project to render, and the deadline is near, be sure to check out how we can help you get it rendered in time!