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Hi Guys! We successfully completed a noteworthy project, Valorant Arabia, that thrilled the gaming community. An interesting detail about this case – it was an outdoor ad. Of course, it was not bland, but a super unusual 3D ad revealing the newest agent Harbor with water powers in a busy district of Dubai. This ad was unique, not just due to its 3D format, but also because Harbor was the first Indian agent in the game and we launched him in a country with a high Indian population.

Our challenge was to create an impactful 3D billboard that would reveal the agent and leave a lasting impression in just 30 seconds. Long story short, we achieved this by creating a large ad showcasing Harbor and added an interactive element with a second billboard across the street.

Here's a short video explaining what it’s all about. If you're interested, we've also included a more in-depth text about the creation process.

Idea Creation

We gotta start with the fact that the most interesting and challenging part of this case was to convey the Harbors character in a short 3D ad and fill it with cool effects without tiring the viewer. To figure out what would be happening for those 30 seconds on the screens, we plunged into the agent’s world, we began to think, breathe and act like him.

Harbor has the ability to control water, manipulate it. That’s why the screen is filled with water. If you look closely, in the very beginning of the ad the water flows up, not down. Someone appears to be moving this water against the laws of physics. When a hand appears and starts playing with the water, you understand that Harbor is connected with all this stuff.

How could we make the billboard even more exciting and bring more attention to it? We show the ad on not one, but two screens at once! This allows the agent to throw the water ball across the street, straight into the second screen! This way we can draw the viewer's attention to the text on the second screen and avoid clutter of details and information on the main billboard.

To show the agent in all his glory, as well as to demonstrate his Indian roots, we paid a lot of attention to the interior of the room. According to the lore of the game, Harbor had been very attached to his lost motorcycle, so we came up with the idea of portraying it in the form of a hologram. You know, some people have posters of celebrities, some have kid’s drawings hanging on the walls, but Harbor has his motorcycle.

Pay attention to other small details, everything is there for a reason. Two cricket bats on the wall also have a meaning (cricket is one of the popular sports in India). Also, there is a distinctive pattern on the ceiling that refers to India. Interestingly, we can find the same water pattern in the game (follow the golden threads).

Production

There were two approaches to making the video for the 3D billboard. The first was a minimal image distortion on the screens’ sides, but it caused a loss of the wow effect. The second involved a maximum 3D effect sacrificing the image quality on the sides.

But imagine a dude climbing out of the screen and breaking through the fourth wall, when you are casually walking down a street in Dubai! This is really awesome! Of course, working together with Valorant we chose the second option.

Scale & Perspective

In order to portray the new agent as realistically as possible, we recreated in 3D the entire area of Dubai, where the screens were located. We looked at how high the screens were and considered their dimensions, we verified everything to the millimeter and selected the camera lens that would fit the human eye – with a focus of 24 mm.

When we set up all the physical parameters, we began to look for the point from which it all looked most impressive.

We've done some real digital scouting, we basically recreated a digital film set and, thanks to a camera that behaves like a human eye, we looked for the best spot to shoot everything.

Water animation

Creating water was also tricky. In the game the water was designed in a cartoon-like style, but we had to bring it to life, simulate it, and make it more realistic for the 3D billboard. After that, we should match the correct simulation with the hand-drawn water.

That's how Playsense flood the streets!

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The waves got massive!
24 000 posts | tweets | publications about the billboard
Over 6 600 000 views of videos about the billboard*
And half a million of positive reactions below!