HMS Astute Submarine Trainer

TwoFour were contracted to replace a 3D training application that had failed to meet acceptance criteria due to it's slow performance. The task of creating a successful training application was sub-contracted by TwoFour to Real Visual.

I spent an 8 week period in Faslane, Scotland in order to review the restricted source data and develop a viable and cost effective workflow for bringing the data into Unity.

Once I had identified a workflow we were able to scale the team from one to four artists and worked rapidly to bring the entire vessel into Unity. The source data was highly detailed and was challenging to make it render at 30fps or more. The mesh was heavily optimised for Unity's specific engine preferences; we merged multiple objects together to reduce draw calls and create single material objects that hit the 7.5k vertex 'sweet spot' that Unity renders most efficiently.

Once we were able to navigate the entire vessel in Unity it become a very useful platform which we could add functionality to in order to improve the health and safety and familiarisation training offered to the SMQ trainees.

We embedded information in over 300 points of interest allowing trainees to find out more about items as required. We also created scenarios which would test a trainees ability to follow correct procedure in the case of emergency such as fire or flood. The scenarios could be started remotely by the instructor and the trainees actions could be viewed remotely allowing for quick, live assessment.

Client: TwoFour

Copyright owner: Inside Infinity

Team: Daniel Learmonth (Lead Artist), Louis Macan (Lead Developer), Daniel Stringer (3D Artist), Daniel Jutson (3D Artist)

Tools: 3DSMax, Unity, Vray, FlatIron,

Further information.