“For NASA, scientific accuracy is a priority,” says Vladimir Petkovic, Creative Director, Substance 3D team at Adobe. “The ability to plug in existing NASA satellite images to Substance Sampler and produce 3D material which precisely matches Europa's surface in real life, was huge. While we could have done this manually, working with NASA's source data allowed us to improve accuracy and speed up our creative workflow. I used Substance 3D Stager to set up a 3D scene where I could adjust the lighting, camera angle, and composition very quickly to achieve just the right image to visualize the magnitude of the Europa Clipper mission.”
Creating an accessible and interactive AR experience
When people open ClipperAR, they are greeted by the solar system spinning amongst a field of stars with the title, “Journey to an Ocean World.” The planets then fade away to highlight Jupiter, followed by Europa. Users are invited to click on three buttons — Water, Chemistry, and Energy — to hear narration and watch infographics that explain how these elements can combine to form life. Finally, they are introduced to the Europa Clipper itself. People can walk around the Clipper, view it from different angles, and click on points of interest to get a closer look at individual instruments, such as the magnetometer used to measure magnetic fields or the imaging system that will capture both color and stereoscopic images.
The Adobe 3D team started designing the experience by creating storyboards and a compelling script. This was followed by an animatic designed in Premiere Pro to visualize the important interactivity and narrative flow of the AR experience. Once approved, the team got to work creating nearly 146 assets, including 2D and 3D visuals, text, audio, and animated sequences, using Adobe Creative Cloud apps.