Pre-Production

Concept & Scripting

The SST Technology Center Overview animation was designed as a hybrid storytelling piece—merging semi-photorealistic and conceptual 3D to hit both ends of the communication spectrum. The goal: explain a complex testing and simulation workflow with clarity and visual punch, without sacrificing technical accuracy. The format was intentionally chosen to flow between grounded realism and abstract system-level representation. It needed to show the actual facility, equipment, and simulation environments, while also delivering on the schematic clarity required for top-of-funnel messaging.

Client-provided assets played a major role in striking that balance. Production kicked off with a strong package of reference materials: high-res photos of SST’s proprietary rig truck, lab environments, and the exterior of their Houston facility. These were paired with detailed technical writeups explaining each piece of equipment and how it’s used in subsea and downhole validation scenarios. Interior shots and screenshots of their software interfaces filled in the gaps—letting us model control panels and data displays with real-world fidelity. A vector-format logo rounded out the toolkit, setting us up for clean integration in post.

The script was built around a dual-track narrative. The first layer anchored the viewer spatially: real places, real equipment, real context. The second layer pulled back into abstraction—simplifying workflows into conceptual diagrams and data-driven visuals. This back-and-forth created a rhythm: realism, then overlay; machinery, then simulation. That rhythm mirrored SST’s positioning at the intersection of hands-on testing and virtual modeling.

Rapid Prototyping

RP started with an intensive modeling push to get SST’s unique testing equipment right. The mobile rig and wellbore simulation gear were two of the most complex assets in the entire piece—both custom-built from scratch in Cinema 4D.

The rig truck in particular was a beast. It combined structural, mechanical, and hydraulic systems all packed onto a single chassis—pumps, pressure lines, control stations, structural reinforcements. We broke it into logical chunks based on client-supplied photos, which gave us solid views from multiple angles. We modeled every key element: hose couplings, valve clusters, intake and outflow routing, safety rails, and the full gauge panel. Texturing happened in parallel using procedural materials layered with grunge maps to get realistic surface variation. All UV-unwrapped for full control.

The facility interior housing the downhole simulation chamber got the same level of detail. The raised machinery platform, overhead gantries, stacked tanks, and vertical pipework all had to connect logically. The test well chamber—visible in the vertical cutaway—was modeled to show concentric casing, support structures, and surrounding safety elements. Nothing was kitbashed. Every cable, bracket, and hose was built with hard-surface modeling methods to match real fabrication logic.

The exterior of the SST facility was also built from scratch, modeled from the ground up using reference photos to match siding, rooflines, and the unique structure of loading bays and service sheds.

Together, these models formed the architectural and mechanical foundation of the project. More generic assets—like vessels or basic tanks—were pulled from internal libraries where appropriate, but the core visuals were SST-specific, purpose-built, and engineered to hold up under sustained, close-up camera time.

To open the animation with geographic context, we used OpenStreetMap data to extract building footprints and terrain from Houston’s Energy Corridor. That gave us a spatially accurate fly-in to SST’s location before transitioning into the interior cutaway. For the offshore rig, we retrofitted an existing platform model from a previous project. For the onshore drill rig, we licensed a high-quality asset specifically for this animation to keep production moving.

Camera blocking and motion were a focus from day one. Using nulls and spline paths, we choreographed transitions that moved from macro aerial views to micro equipment detail. That motion helped reinforce the script’s logic—starting with the problem, moving through SST’s process, and ending in solution. A standout animation prototype involved directional flow movement using Cloner objects along splines—visualizing fluid motion in the flow loop system in a way that felt both informative and kinetic.

Early Visual Styles Explored

The visual approach was refined during RP by testing two design languages: one rooted in realism, the other in abstraction. Initial shader and lighting tests focused on how these two modes would work side by side. Real-world scenes were grounded with daylight lighting and PBR shaders; the conceptual sections leaned into holographic translucency, soft glows, and minimal lighting schemes. We composited a few test frames in After Effects early to make sure overlays and motion graphics wouldn’t clash when the animation flipped from photoreal to schematic.

Early holographic scenes used transparent building shapes and conceptual UI overlays to build a stylized “digital lab” environment. These were tested against grounded shots of SST’s real equipment to validate that style switching wouldn’t feel jarring. It passed. Even with minimal lighting at this stage, we could see that the visual contrast—when used intentionally—would actually help segment the storytelling and reinforce SST’s hybrid identity.

Prototyping Animation Concepts

One technical challenge in RP was getting the scale transitions to feel intuitive—especially the vertical slice that travels from surface facility down into a simulated borehole. To support that move, we built a geological strata backdrop in Photoshop based on reference images, then brought it into C4D as a layered texture mapped onto vertical planes. That created a believable underground environment that could play under the cutaway animation.

Static infographics and interface graphics were sketched out during RP but held for After Effects, following the same pipeline we’ve used successfully in other mixed-reality animations.

Style Choices and Reasoning

The dual-style approach came straight from the core of SST’s offering. They’re a company that bridges physical testing and virtual modeling—and that meant the animation had to do the same. We used a semi-photoreal look for their actual gear—the trucks, the facility, the hardware. That gave the animation credibility. It showed that this wasn’t hypothetical—it was built, operational, field-ready. We lit those scenes with daylight rigs and shaded everything using PBR materials to highlight the grit, the polish, and the industrial muscle of SST’s physical solutions.

The abstract segments used soft HDR lighting and intentionally minimal shaders. Transparency, glow, and digital overlays created a conceptual layer—elevating the brand into system-thinking territory. These holographic environments were clean, layered, and forward-looking. They didn’t just look technical—they felt precise, predictive, and modern.

That back-and-forth—real-world context layered with clean, conceptual abstraction—wasn’t just a visual play. It was the message. SST delivers hands-on engineering backed by simulation intelligence. The hybrid style gave us a way to communicate both, clearly and visually. The photoreal grounded the viewer in physical reality. The schematic lifted them into systems-level understanding. Together, they told the full story—how SST solves real-world problems with the speed and precision of virtual modeling. The style wasn’t just appropriate—it was essential to expressing their brand promise.

Full Production

Look Development

Full production started with a tight, focused look development push, built around two core visual tracks. The animation’s structure demanded a dual-style execution: photorealism to show the physical scale and complexity of SST’s hardware, and conceptual abstraction to explain system-level processes with speed and clarity. Both styles were developed in parallel, tied together by a unified color palette, a shared motion language, and a consistent rendering pipeline.

We kicked this off by generating a series of concept frames that locked in lighting, material settings, and render parameters for both styles. For the photoreal exterior scenes, we implemented a daylight rig calibrated to produce believable shadow falloff and surface response across SST’s industrial architecture and equipment. For conceptual sequences, we used a soft, neutral HDRI setup to minimize contrast and boost subtle reflections—especially important for transparent, glass-like materials. Everything was rendered through Cinema 4D’s Physical Renderer, giving us the right mix of visual fidelity and manageable render times.

The strata cross-sections were a key storytelling moment early in the piece. To build them efficiently without heavy geometry, we created a layered 2D texture in Photoshop, composited from multiple photographic references. This texture represented geological layering in a clear, readable way and was mapped to a vertically subdivided plane in Cinema 4D. The result was a clean, displaced surface that gave naturalistic depth to the transition from surface to subsurface visuals.

A lot of effort also went into refining the project’s holographic shader. This material had to be fast to render, easy to read, and flexible enough to support motion graphics overlays. We combined transparency, edge highlights, and soft reflectance to give form without weight. A Fresnel-based reflectance layer helped lift edge luminance, giving structure and shape to elements even against dark backgrounds or complex scene builds. This shader became the backbone for the conceptual scenes—giving them clarity without slowing the pipeline down.

Design & Animation

With materials and lighting locked, we shifted into asset refinement and full-scale animation. The project opened with an aerial flyover of Houston’s Energy Corridor, which required a custom layout. We extracted building footprints and roadways from OpenStreetMap data, turned them into 3D extrusions, and arranged them around the SST facility to give contextual framing without overwhelming the scene.

The facility itself was a ground-up custom build based on client-provided photography. We modeled every structural and mechanical component visible in the final cut—wall divisions, ceiling trusses, machinery mounts, and control platforms. The building was animated with careful clipping and camera moves, transitioning cleanly from the surface into a full cross-section, then down through simulated strata and into the bore. This gave us a visual thread that carried the viewer from the physical world into SST’s digital test environment.

To save time elsewhere, we repurposed a drill platform model from a previous energy-sector project. We updated materials, repositioned equipment, adjusted geometry, and re-lit the rig to fit the SST environment. The onshore drill rig was sourced as a purchased model, but we integrated it into our scene builds with custom textures and environment assets to maintain visual continuity.

The ocean shader used in offshore sequences was hand-built for this project. Instead of running heavy simulations, we used a procedural bump map on a large surface plane to simulate wave motion. This gave us realistic light behavior and wave patterns without impacting render performance—a practical solution for wide shots with dynamic lighting.

PBR texture work was done manually across all hero assets. Surfaces included brushed aluminum, corroded steel, rubber hosing, painted metal, mesh platforms, and high-gloss composites. We layered base color, roughness, and normals using baked texture stacks to build in visual density. These materials did heavy lifting in photoreal scenes—separating elements during motion-heavy transitions and reinforcing the weight and materiality of SST’s field systems.

For the sky, we kept it simple: a high-res photo projection mapped to a large plane in the background. It gave consistent lighting, color, and cloud detail without introducing volumetric unpredictability. This move helped maintain render speeds while delivering a grounded, open-air tone in exterior setups.

Post-Production & Delivery

Final Compositing & Color Grading

Post-production played a critical role in defining and unifying the animation’s dual-style structure—balancing the grounded realism of SST’s hardware with the clean abstraction of their conceptual workflows. Color grading was handled entirely in After Effects, using curves, hue shifts, exposure masks, and vignettes to differentiate and align visual styles while keeping the transitions smooth and purposeful.

Photoreal scenes got targeted warmth and contrast boosts to reinforce natural lighting—steel felt heavier, rubber more tactile, sky tones more believable. Conceptual sequences were pushed into cooler tones with desaturated palettes and expanded dynamic range. Glow treatments and subtle visual noise were layered on top to create that signature “tech-system” feel, giving the abstract overlays a clean but atmospheric edge.

Edge blur was introduced around holographic shots to guide viewer attention and control depth. Chromatic aberration was added sparingly at corners and along high-contrast edges, giving conceptual overlays a subtle refraction cue—something you’d associate with glass, projection, or futuristic UIs. Photoreal scenes, by contrast, were treated with a controlled sharpening layer to retain texture fidelity and surface grit—critical in moments where SST’s engineering credibility needed to be front and center.

Compositing didn’t just clean up the visuals—it enhanced spatial coherence. Every render passed through After Effects where elements like scale, focus, and rhythm could be adjusted. A small airplane, for example, was composited into a wide exterior shot—not as a gimmick, but as a scale cue. It’s that kind of micro-layered realism that made the transitions between CG and photo-based content seamless.

One of the more immersive treatments came in the holographic isometric scenes. We built a motion-reactive parallax grid beneath the transparent structures using Trapcode—anchored to the AE camera. It moved in sync with the scene’s perspective, simulating depth and digital infrastructure, and reinforcing the visual language of SST’s simulation environment.

Infographics, UI Overlays, Data Visualization

SST’s value lives in the process—not just the hardware. We communicated that through a dense layer of animated data visuals and UI overlays built entirely in After Effects. Circular flow charts broke down SST’s three-part pipeline—identification, engineering, qualification. These weren’t just infographics—they were built to feel like functional parts of the system. 3D callouts explained how downhole and surface components worked together, with floating text, animated arrows, pulsating nodes, and layered visual cues creating fast clarity from complex ideas.

Typography followed the established holographic system: sleek, legible, tech-forward, and consistently treated with glow and spatial motion.

The final logo sequence was enhanced with particle systems and digital detailing. Floating data bits—glowing, randomized, and semi-transparent—moved through space behind the logo, creating a subtle ambient “data field.” These weren’t just visual fluff—they reinforced SST’s tech-forward identity, suggesting a system in motion, data in play, and intelligence behind the hardware.

Timing, pacing, and transition logic were refined across multiple review passes. Conceptual overlays and photoreal render cuts were merged using spatial wipes, masked dissolves, and depth-driven fades. We focused on keeping visual continuity tight—each camera move connected logically, each overlay aligned with its subject, and each sequence built on the one before it without dropping the viewer into a new scene cold.

Every graphic overlay—charts, labels, callouts—was added in post. Nothing was baked into the 3D render, giving us maximum flexibility to align data visuals with VO cadence, update labels late in the process, or adapt callouts based on final messaging.

Delivery

Final outputs were rendered in 1080p H.264 for marketing use—optimized for embedded playback without sacrificing detail. Key stills were pulled directly from the composite timeline for use in web, sales decks, and print collateral. Everything was structured modularly, giving SST the flexibility to edit, repurpose, or expand the video system later without needing to re-render the base 3D content.

Transcript:

The SST Technology Center was built in 2013 and is located in the heart of Houston's Energy Corridor. If it happens in the well or riser, we can simulate, validate, and qualify it here faster and less expensive than anyone. Once the problem is identified, we design, build, and commercialize the solution in-house. Our purpose is to solve problems at our facility quickly and cost effectively before they go into the customer's well.

We identified the issues. We researched the possible solutions. We engineer and design the best option. We validate and qualify that option and then we pursue commercialization. SST gives you a faster and less expensive solution than you ever believed possible.

Our two pressure and temperature controlled test wells simulate scenarios expected in subsea and downhole operations. Coupled with our flow loop we qualify and verify subsea completion and intervention technologies for system performance.

We deliver commercial technology-driven solutions to customers for drilling, completion, or production-related problems in an accelerated time frame and within budget. When you need a partner to resolve complex problems both quickly and economically, SST is the solution.