OUR OCEANS VFX BREAKDOWN
an Earth asset that we’ve built and improved on over a number of years,” explains Hagar. “Part of Moonraker’s work on Our Oceans involved mapping the current simulations from Houdini onto their precise locations on Earth. So we had to know exactly where each section starts and ends, how one ocean flows into the next and understand the connections between them; this is where oceanographic research came in.” TITLE WAVE Moonraker has extensive experience creating title sequences for nature documentaries. Wild Space and the team at Netflix wanted to put oceans at
the centre of all visuals. “It was important for the title shots to help the audience locate where we are in the world while looking at the Earth in a unique way. We developed an unwrapping Earth in Maya that could keep the ocean in the centre of the frame with the landmasses almost vignetting it,” explains Hagar. “We set the scene. The path, temperature changes and subtle changes in the speed of the current needed to be visible in the title shot, before the audience is taken on a journey in the rest of the episode. “I’m proud of the team’s work on such a challenging project. We created something unique that will have a lasting effect. A year and a half’s worth of work on screen is no drop in the ocean.”
SIMULATING SEAS Moonraker VFX (bottom) drew on NASA datasets (top) for realistic recreations of global ocean currents
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