In this video we show how we went about creating the 3 stills about the destruction, reconstruction and revival of Ostend. For this we use a number of software packages and techniques.

For the creation of the city we use the popular game engine Unreal Engine 5. In this we make a blockout that we then dress up with 3D models that are made with 3D model software such as Maya, 3dsMax and Blender. We make these look more realistic using texture programs such as substance painter and designer and photoshop. It was always important for us to take sufficient account of our reference and scientific data, in order to get the final result as historically correct as possible.

The first scene we made was The revival of the city. Although this was not chronologically correct, this allowed us to start working from a finished scene and then break it down further to obtain the destroyed version.

In order to make the revival feel very lively, it was important to add a lot of people to the city. For this we used the Metahuman framework from Epic Games. This allowed us to quickly add a wide variety of people who were easy to pose.

In the second scene, the reconstruction, we added crumbling versions of the buildings to the city using destruction simulations made in the Houdini program to show the devastation caused by the storm.

In the storm scene we used Houdini again, this time for water simulations. For this we let a few heavy waves hit the buildings in a water volume and then chose an interesting image from the simulation to convert into a usable 3D model.

Finally, we sent some of our researchers to the coast to record sounds on site to create accurate soundscapes that reinforce the mood of the scenes.