Idea 1
Comic book
The camera follows passers-by and triggers an animation that moves left or right with them, mimicking ’70s–’90s comics by blending four to six characters into a patchwork of anime-style drawings.
00Project
TimeWalk
A comic-book time portal through ArtCenter’s 950 building
01Context
What is TimeWalk
TimeWalk is a motion-capture experience, built in Unity, that runs on a large TV in a hallway of ArtCenter’s 950 building. People walking past steer a comic-book time traveler back through the building’s history — the school it is today, a working wind tunnel lab in the 1970s and a wind tunnel under construction in the 1920s — meeting the people of each era on the way.
02Overview
One building, three eras.
950 was once one of the largest wind tunnel laboratories in the United States; today it belongs to an art and design school. TimeWalk brings the two together — the building’s history, drawn as a comic you walk through.
Welcome to 950
The same hall, three times
- 2024
An art and design school
Part of ArtCenter today, with model cars for students.
- 1970
A working wind tunnel
One of the largest wind tunnel labs in the U.S., testing airplanes.
- 1920
Under construction
The building is being turned into a wind tunnel for the U.S. Army.
03Visual style
Each era, printed like its comics.
The theme is manga, and each era is drawn the way comics of its time were printed — the further back in time, the fewer the colours.
Three palettes
How the colour grows with the years
2024 · Full colour
Modern printing brings many colours; a black outline on every object stresses the manga theme.
1970 · One colour per object
Printing was still limited, so each object takes one colour, for a mostly monochromatic look.
1920 · Black and white
Comics then had no colour, so the scene is black, white and grey, with white as its main colour.
04Research
A building with a story to tell.
The brief: publicity for ArtCenter’s new building, 950, shown on a large TV in one of its hallways.
Challenges
Three questions to answer
01
History
What is the building’s story, and what of it can we tell?
02
ArtCenter
How do we show that this is an ArtCenter building, and what makes the school special?
03
Interaction
How does the piece interact with people, and what connects them to the building?
History of 950
One of the largest wind tunnels in the U.S.
Our research showed that the building was once one of the largest wind tunnel laboratories in the United States. It was completed and dedicated in 1930 and decommissioned in 1997.
Ideation
A historic building as a comic
A building with a long history, now home to an art and design school: we made those two sides the heart of the project — a comic-book version of the historic building that people can interact with.
Interaction
Read the way people walk
The piece hangs in a corridor that many faculty and staff walk through every day, so it reacts to the direction passers-by are heading.
05Function
You walk, the time traveler runs.
Two features make up the experience: a time traveler that visitors steer, and the people of the building, run by the computer.
Run
A time traveler from the comic-book universe runs freely through the building.
NPCs
The building is dotted with characters that react to the time traveler.
The run
Seven stops, one walk
Locations
Seven stops let the character visit the building as it looked in each of the three periods.
Movement track
Walk left in front of the camera and the character runs left; walk right and it runs right.
Spotlight
A window like a comic-book panel gives the character a close-up, so it is easy to follow.
NPCs
They notice the time traveler
Every NPC along the route reacts when the character comes near. A soldier stands idle — and salutes as it passes.
Periods
The people of each era
The NPCs are the people who would have been there: students and teachers today, wind tunnel researchers in the 1970s, construction workers and soldiers in the 1920s.
NPC spotlight
Close-ups on the people
Comic-panel windows give the camera to the most special NPCs of each period, such as students, workers and console operators.
06Process
Two ideas, one walk.
We started with two ideas and combined the best of each into one project — and then rebuilt it from 2D animation to 3D.
Idea generation
Comic book + time
Idea 2
Time
The camera captures the silhouettes of the passing crowd and randomly mixes silhouettes from a moment ago with today’s passers-by, so times and spaces interlace.
Combined
TimeWalk
The best of both: 950 split into three periods and filled with the people of each, with a character the visitor steers on a walking tour of the building.
Sketches
A storyboard for each idea
Version 1
2D animation
We first generated concept art of a wind tunnel with AI and kept the bottom half of the screen as a strip for people to walk along. Walking past the TV, they would see animations around them and NPCs talking to them.
Version 2
3D immersive
To present all of 950, we switched from 2D animation to a 3D world: walking right or left sends a comic-book time traveler through the building’s whole history.
07Build
Three buildings in one model.
We divided the building into three main sections — the present, the 1970s and the 1920s — and each is constructed differently.
Building concept
What stands in each era
- 2024
A school with model cars
About to become home to transportation design: a modern school building, with model vehicles for students to see.
- 1970
Test planes and giant fans
The building is finished: airplanes under test, giant fans and several operators’ desks at the controls.
- 1920
Steel and army vehicles
Still being built into a wind tunnel for the U.S. Army, the hall is all steel structure, stairs and military vehicles.
Modeling
From the tunnel to the hall
Models and materials
People of every era, in manga colour
Workers, scientists, soldiers and students tell the building’s story in each era. The visual theme is manga, so the models take manga materials: a base material built as a shader, then recoloured for each look.
Animation
Every NPC in motion
Each NPC has its own animation, so in play mode the building comes alive. Some NPCs have extra actions when the time traveler passes in front of them.
08Final
On the hallway TV.
The final build runs on the TV in 950’s hallway: as people walk past, the time traveler walks with them through the building’s history.