AR Elder Dragon
Opening Ceremony
Strategy
Innovation
Creative Producer
Creative Direction
Summoning an AR Dragon
AR Elder Dragon
For the 2017 League of Legends World Championships, Riot Games transformed the Beijing Olympic Stadium, aka The Birds Nest, into the Dragons nest.
Client
Riot Games
Released
Project Type
Opening Ceremony
Timeframe
6 Months
AR Elder Dragon
Overview
I pitched and led the creative ideation, development, and execution of the AR Dragon that flew into the stadium during during the 2017 Worlds Opening Ceremony.
As part of this role I was in charge of working alongside musical composers, artists, choreographers, and art directors to oversee the entire creative implementation of the dragon within the show. I sourced third party creative and technical partners, managed day-to-day feedback with artists, and led all onsite execution.
AR Elder Dragon
The Challenge
League of Legends is one of the most popular gaming IP's in the world and we wanted to utilize that in the most awe inspiring way possible. We also knew that the Beijing Olympic Stadiums was one of the most iconic, massive, venues in the world. How could we use it's size as a character?
Augmented Reality at this size, scope, and scale had yet to be accomplished. Traditional live AR activations for broadcast had always been just normal fullscreens put into 3D space. This was something new, and required custom character design, animation, and software development.
AR Elder Dragon
The Solution
The project was considered an RnD execution until it could be proven it was possible. I sourced the technical and creative partners to execute the project. Zero Density was chosen as the render engine because of thir unique ability at the time to be the only engine that could integrate live shadows across a piece of 3D geometry using a port of the Unreal Engine. Passion Republic was chosen as the animation and design partner becuase of their expert knowledge in video game design and character optimization for real-time.
AR Elder Dragon
The Results
Immediately after the dragons debut, it become a culutural phenomenon. All major news outlets covered the moment, Lebron James posted about it on Instagram, and ultimately, Riot Games won the first ever Sports Emmy for a non-traditional sport for Live Graphic Design.
To this day, you will see AR executions that are inspired by the dragon. A raven flying into a football field, a panther running across, and full visual takeovers of arenas and stadiums. This project truly set the standard for real-time graphics.
