Mapping the great wave: how Lux Aeterna produced data-centric visuals for Tsunami: Race Against Time

VFX house Lux Aeterna used wave height data from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration for National Geographics documentary about the 2004 tsunami

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Published: December 23, 2024

VFX house Lux Aeterna used wave height data from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration for National Geographic's documentary about the 2004 tsunami

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In a project spanning nearly a year, visual effects house Lux Aeterna delivered a broad scope of data-centric visual work as graphics in the form of maps and title sequences, for National Geographic's new docuseries Tsunami: Race Against Time. The four-part series marks 20 years since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, reflecting on the personal stories of those affected by the disaster.

Told through original footage, photography, and interviews with survivors, scientists, journalists, and rescuers - some seen and heard for the first time - the four-part series provides a comprehensive view of the devastating wave as it surged across the ocean, in new detail. The project was led by creative director Steve Burrell, with the support of Lux Aeterna's VFX director Paul Silcox, who provided data simulation in Houdini, alongside Ben Coath, junior pipeline technical director.

A unique challenge faced by the Lux Aeterna team during the project was processing the wave height data provided by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This data was originally sourced by NOAA from deep-water gauges, producing five hours' worth of data in total. The team was supplied with a 232GB NetCDF file of pure data, this was processed into a format readable by Lux Aeterna's VFX pipeline.

Billions of data points were collected from NOAA, scientists, and survivors to create the animated map, resulting in an Excel document the size of three terabytes, comments Silcox. We used Python to process data through Houdini, producing simulations that were incredibly accurate and often revealing unexpected insights.

This vast volume of data resulted in the most accurate graphical recreation of the 2004 tsunami to date. What's new is the level of detail and the processing power applied through Houdini, comments series producer James Parris. A total of 37 billion valid data points were processed in Houdini, via Python, and used to accurately map the wave patterns over time. This waveform visualisation had never before been used in this way or widely reported, and Lux Aeterna was able to envision the data in a way that even scientists had not done before.

The concept of the series first came about with the team at Blast Films reflecting on significant events and upcoming anniversaries, and realising that the full story of the Indian Ocean tsunami had never been told. Simultaneously, National Geographic was looking to produce a series that echoed their Emmy-winning documentary, 9/11: One Day in America, also directed by Daniel Bogado, leading to their interest in Tsunami: Race Against Time. It had an incredible unseen archive and thousands of compelling human stories, comments Tanya Winston, creative director at Blast Films. It felt like we could create a series that would be gripping and terrifying, yet purposeful, and that would also seek the best in human nature.

Production began in October 2022, with shooting taking place in blocks between March 2023 and January 2024. No reenactments were filmed, only interviews with survivors and those affected by the natural disaster. It wasn't just a tourist story, says Winston, the parts that have never been told are the stories of the locals who were worst affected. The team at Blast Films recognised the need for one of the biggest natural disasters in the 21st century to be properly documented, giving those who were impacted their deserved air time.

Lux Aeterna was brought on to help realise the sheer scale of the disaster, through motion graphics in the form of maps. Throughout the series, the wave - illustrated through Lux Aeterna's graphics - acts as the narrative driver. The maps built by the team were critical to the immersive storytelling, identifying the wave at various points of impact as it spread across South East Asia. The maps enabled the audience to visually see the tsunami's movement and impact across the region, and the great speed with which the waves travelled over thousands of kilometres. When telling a story that exists over multiple countries and coastlines, maps and visuals were vital to helping the audience understand where they are in the timeline and the geography, keeping the story clear and sharpening the sense of the devastating magnitude of the event.

The team's work on the data-driven visualisation of the devastating wave yielded more than just compelling visuals, it highlighted often-misunderstood information about the path of the tsunami. What shocked us was the order in which the countries were hit, which wasn't intuitive, says Parris, for example, the east coast of Sri Lanka was hit before parts of Thailand, despite the distance.

The series depicts, in high resolution, how the wave wrapped around the island to hit the other side, showing how the south-west coast of Sri Lanka was badly affected despite being protected by a vast landmass.

The series was a close collaboration between Blast Films and the team at Lux Aeterna, with acute attention to an accurate and sensitive retelling of this disastrous ev

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