The brief for this project called for creating a visual explainer to guide an audience through understanding 1) what methane is, and 2) why it is so critical to better study the public health impacts of methane emissions.

While early sketches used abstract symbols to represent growing knowledge and links between connected ideas, we quickly abandoned that direction in favor of a more literal approach using methane molecules.

This also presented the opportunity to work in a 3D story-telling environment. In terms of the narrative, this allowed us to navigate through a single scene using camera movements and text annotations to discuss everything from molecules of air pollutants all the way out to the satellites orbiting the earth detecting methane leaks. From a technical standpoint, this also presented us the opportunity to work out a pipeline wherein 3D assets were designed in Blender and then optimized, compressed, and exported for use in a compact Three.js powered web site.

Once the 3D assets were constructed, the next step was to animate the camera movements and connect them to the users scroll position as they navigate the site. Finally, we included an interactive graphic after the narrative section that would allow visitors to find the latest findings from PSE, grouped by research focusing on upstream, midstream, and downstream effects of the typical oil and gas processing pipeline.