On February 4, 2022, the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games was held in a festive and peaceful Chinese New Year atmosphere. With Zhang Yimou as the general director, Cai Guoqiang as the visual art designer, Sha Xiaolan as the lighting art director and Chen Yan as the art designer, the opening ceremony is a romantic, beautiful and modern event with the core expression of “building a community of human destiny” and the integration of technological innovation, low-carbon environmental protection and sports health concepts. The event is a romantic, beautiful and modern event.
This year’s Winter Olympics adheres to the theme of “simple, safe and wonderful”, starting from the story of a snowflake, through AI algorithms, naked eye 3D, AR augmented reality, image motion and other digital technology hands to show the ethereal, beautiful, simple modern art style, to convey the romantic sense of ice and snow crystal clear, presenting the concept of technological aesthetics, ethereal and romantic, radiant and wonderful.
The world's largest LED flooring naked eye 3D + dynamic capture
The ground screen for the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics is composed of 46,504 50 cm square unit boxes, with a total area of 11,626 square meters, making it the largest LED stage in the world at present.
The ground screen as a whole is not only able to present a naked eye 3D effect, but also with a motion capture interactive system that can capture the actors’ travel trajectory in real time, thus realizing the interaction between the actors and the ground screen. For example, the actors in the ice screen skiing scene, the actors “slide” to where the snow on the ground are pushed away, and then for example, the peace doves show link, children playing snow on the ground screen, where to walk there are snowflakes, dynamic capture system both to optimize the scene, but also makes the scene more realistic.
Olympic five rings "break the ice and appear"
In the opening ceremony of this year’s Winter Olympic Games, the most eye-catching than the “Yellow River water” pouring down and rolling. Then, the river slowly freezes and turns into a world of ice, and a huge water rises from the ice surface and freezes into ice. The history of the past 23 Winter Olympic Games host cities flashed on it, finally framed as “2022 Beijing, China”.
The puck crashed into the “ice cube”, a crystal clear ice five rings from the ice cube “break the ice out”, super shock! “Breaking the ice” means breaking down barriers, getting closer to each other, and everyone becoming one.
The first presentation of the green microfire torch
The unprecedented ignition ceremony created history, and this bold innovation succeeded in leaving a colorful mark in the history of the Olympics, as chief director Zhang Yimou said, “The way of ignition and even the torch stand is one of our boldest designs and changes, which has not been seen in the history of the 100-year Olympics.”
The snowflake stand, made from a combination of Chinese knots and olive branches, incorporates traditional Chinese cultural elements while highlighting the Olympic motto. The use of program-controlled pixels in a limited number of pixel spots creates a dynamic effect that matches the geometric shape and matches the physical light bead spots. This is the first time in the history of the Olympic Games to present a microfire torch built on the core principle of green protection.
It creatively combines the handheld torch with the torch stand organically to minimize carbon emissions. The ground image and the core device composed of digital light and shadow matrix shine together, and the names of the participating countries are linked and shine together to the future!
Presenting the Winter Olympics with ink animation style
A drop of water turns into ice. A drop of ice-blue ink falls from the sky and transforms into the water of the Yellow River, pouring down. The mood of the whole picture comes from the old Chinese poem “The water of the Yellow River comes from the sky”, which is a romantic imagination and praise to the mother river of China. The tossing waves finally condensed into a crystal clear world of ice and snow, which also seems to freeze time.
The “Chinese doors” and “Chinese windows” carved in ice and snow that the athletes walked through were all taken from the classic traditional door and window patterns around China. The “China Gate” that the athletes walked through symbolizes the Chinese people opening their doors and welcoming friends from all over the world to the Winter Olympics. The “China Window” under the athletes’ feet, outside the window are the great rivers and mountains and natural landscapes of China, expressing the beautiful intention of “opening the window to see China”.
Traditional culture showcased with digital technology
The visual effects team uses the power of technology and innovative ideas to present the core of Chinese culture to the world through a more up-to-date and multi-dimensional expression, allowing the world to understand Chinese culture and Chinese design language from a new perspective. The public can not only understand the culture itself, but also participate in it and become a part of it, gaining empathy and sympathy in the visual spectacle created, creating a collective memory of people all over the world.
Using the most popular naked-eye 3D technology today, 3D images are projected onto the performance area to achieve an immersive experience at the main viewing location. The physical properties of a large number of materials such as water and ice were also studied, combining the luminous properties of LEDs with the perspective effect of naked-eye 3D to achieve a realistic ice and snow effect.
The traditional Chinese patterns and calligraphic fonts presenting the characters “Fu” and “Happy New Year”, combined with the ice sculpture effect on the ground, shine and glow, showing the spirit of the Chinese people in the new era and the festive atmosphere of welcoming the New Year, while representing China’s sincere greetings to It also represents China’s sincere greetings to people all over the world.
