“Real-time software allows you to create an experience that’s tailored to the creative team working on a specific job.”

Toy Robot Media and Bruce Porter Associates created beautifully simple designs from complex data using Notch. Notch designer Michael Moore explains his no-nonsense workflow to create stunning visuals for a global audience of 50,000 at RSA Conference.

Michael Moore’s experience spans from film and broadcast to live events. As Toy Robot Media’s Creative Director, Michael is passionate about forging a two-way channel of communication in visual art, whether that’s the end product of an interactive project or interacting with the client during the creative process.

RSA Conference is one of the worlds most noteworthy conferences on cybersecurity. Michael re-imagined the cybersecurity network as extruded typographic lines and beautiful complex geometries. Despite looking complex “the geometry was created with a surprisingly simple Nodegraph which facilitated quick render times – perfect for exporting at a large scale resolution”.

Michael created a portfolio of designs in Notch from which the client could choose a master-design. Once the decision had been made Michael iterated a family of surprisingly different visuals. “I used a colour ramp effector to change the random cloner; we would pump that into all the materials and use Random Seed to randomise it”. Creative Director Denise Miller has an eye for colour. It was important for this project to create visuals complementary to the skin tones of speakers. In the weeks run up to the event, Michael began testing out colour palettes by exporting out single PNG’s from Notch to visualise how the glow from the huge screens would affect the lighting on stage.

During the rehearsal, the production hit a kink, a piece of pre-rendered content, commissioned by the RSA to open the show was 20 seconds short of run-length. With only a day till the event, the producers started to sweat. Michael volunteered himself to create a new piece of content for the show. With under a day to create an animation its a task that would send most animators running. In the space of a couple of hours while on site, Michael created a Chinese Lantern Style animation. The Creative Directors were baffled. “I enjoyed the challenge of creating an off the cuff animation on a time frame – and it was a great relief to Denise and the Producers. It was a marvel for them to see the design come together in real-time.”

The show ran five 40 Second, 10260×1080 high-resolution renders, each with a unique look and feel. Throughout rehearsals and in the production Michael was able to keep his kit light: “It was nice to come with just a laptop for versioning and onsite support. I brought two towers with me and didn’t take them out of their flight case!”

“The nice thing about having Notch on site is it engenders trust in the software. I can show other members of the production what is possible with it, and open up ideas for future projects. With real-time software, I can create an experience tailored to the creative team working on a specific job. Notch enabled a two-way conversation between myself and the Creative Directors and Production Designers. It was great to be able to blow them away by creating incredible graphics in front of their very eyes.”