When Unreal Engine walked into weather forecasting.
Every night at 7:30, the electronic organ version of “The Fishing Boat Sings Evening” plays on the TV on time. A host in formal clothes, a map of China full of symbols and color blocks, may be many people’s “weather forecast” All the impressions of , which are still continuing to this day, belong to the collective memory of a generation.
It is precisely because of this that many people’s impression of the weather forecast remains in front of the green screen that has not changed much in 40 years. Even though media technology has been turned upside down over the years, at most we just take out our mobile phones and look at the numbers that can be swiped on the software at a glance, and we don’t feel much change in form.
Simple as the expression pack of the elders in the family
It’s just that in many places abroad, weather forecasts, as one of the common TV programs, also need to ponder various tricks for the ratings and broadcast volume.
After time and the verification of the audience, the wealth password in their hands not only has the beauty benefits of Bailing, the accidents that the audience loves to see, but also the seamless application of Unreal Engine and AR technology in weather forecast that many players have never imagined.
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It is not surprising that a beautiful host can prop up the popularity of a show.
However, due to the limited function of the program, the host has few opportunities to show their charm, so the thin but intuitive impression of “body” has become their most prominent feature – and the most capable An eye-catching weapon for a short period of time.
The weather forecast program in Mexico had good ratings for a period of time, and the number of videos on YouTube was in the unit of 10,000, precisely because the hostess of this program was too eye-catching.
“This video has more than 50 million views, proving that the internet is full of weather forecasters.”
In Chilean and Venezuelan TV programs, there are also episodes where female hosts wear bikinis to broadcast the weather, so that the audience’s least interesting weather broadcasts have become the peak of popularity.
“It’s hot in Chile”
Although there is no such outrageous weather forecast in China, it has not been disconnected from the Internet. In 2020, China Weather Network launched their “virtual weather anchor” Weather Ah Zhun at station B. The popularity of just 110,000 fans is a steady development for a Vtuber who almost only broadcasts weather.
According to her own introduction, her middle person is a regular employee of China Weather
In Japan, where the Vtuber industry started earlier, as early as 4 years before Kizuna used the term “Vtuber”, their weather forecasters had already moved out the avatar of the broadcaster to attract young audiences. With the evolution of the Vtuber model year by year, their virtual broadcaster Airi has also been upgraded to Vtuber’s official debut.
In the show that Airi participated in hosting, the accident was another viewing code that they often tasted sweet. Various technical failures are not uncommon in this “Japan Weather News” program. Even Airi, who is a Vtuber, has only “falled off the screen” because of a technical bug, and it was accidentally leaked during a live broadcast. the person’s appearance.
The person in Airi who hurriedly covered his face when the accident happened
Fortunately, after this accident, Airi’s popularity was not affected too much, so her middle person simply let herself go and began to appear frequently. And in a live broadcast, he gained more attention with the action of “dodging the barrage screen”, which made the middle person “Yamagishi Airi” surpass the popularity of his Vtuber image and became a more famous beauty weather forecast anchor.
FOX9 channel also has a special weather forecast video, which also gained unexpected popularity because of the accident. At that time, due to a technical failure, the announcer encountered the afterimage of the green screen image during the live broadcast. But she did not stop the live broadcast immediately, but happily played “Shadow Clone” in front of the camera, and resumed the serious weather broadcast mode until the troubleshooting.
The video has over 14 million views on YouTube so far
In addition to the accident in the studio, when the weather program focuses on the long-term view of the city during the live broadcast, there will also be many uninvited guests, which can also become a surprise that people are talking about. For example, “I understand the truth, but why is the bird so big?”
Most of these out-of-the-circle weather programs attract attention by relying on elements other than the broadcast, which just proves that the one-size-fits-all weather introduction lacks condiments that can enhance the ingredients. It’s just that the taste that is left out does not necessarily need to be filled with benefits or accidents other than weather broadcasts.
The Weather Channel in the United States used Unreal Engine to prove that even the weather forecast can be very beautiful.
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In Weather Channel’s official account, there are many videos with millions of views. Most of these videos, if you just look at the thumbnails, are hard to believe this is just a weather forecast.
The same green screen and computer imaging are used. The pictures in these videos are not the same as other weather forecast programs in the world.
Weather is no longer a combination of words and numbers. No matter what the weather is and how it will be reflected in the outdoor environment, a more intuitive picture will be presented to the viewers watching the forecast.
Even if extreme weather occurs, they can send back broadcasts from the “first scene” “on the spot”, whether it is a tornado, wildfire, or flood disaster. Let the audience feel as intuitively as possible the size of these natural disasters, the environment we may be in and the problems we may encounter from a human perspective.
In addition to using Unreal Engine to create these weather and environments, they will also calculate and simulate more data, replacing the sentence “Please travel with caution” with examples to tell the audience the problems they may encounter when going out at this time.
For example, in the broadcast and explanation of a storm, the host stood in the middle of a main road. The lateral drift during driving with a 4-seat car model told the audience that it is not safe to drive out at this time. He also described in detail which flying objects mixed in the storm may appear on the road under this kind of wind, using half roadblocks equal to the power of 1G explosives, and persuading those spectators who are still thinking about going out to hide at home obediently.
In some scenes with richer and more game-like environments, the appearance of the host is like walking in the game. It’s just that he doesn’t have to run around the world, but instead stands in place and broadcasts the weather.
In the weather explanation of the heavy rain in the city, the change of the water level is more intuitive than the strong wind. When the water level will rise and how much, with the natural reference coordinates of the host, even viewers who don’t know the data can clearly understand when they can’t drive and when they need to leave the residence on the first floor for refuge.
Even if the hosts stay in “more ordinary” studios, they can make new work to make the weather forecast more vivid and intuitive. For example, in order to show the destructive power of the storm, the wreckage of the building after it was ravaged and swept into the live broadcast room.
Or, a downed telephone pole or a dilapidated car falls from the sky, allowing the weather forecaster to show off his acting talents.
If we look at it from our perspective today, even if many of the models in these scenes are not fine enough and the rendering is incomparable to the masterpieces of the game, it can be put into these field applications and has already achieved very good results. But in fact, these pictures are actually from the content of their programs three or four years ago.
After several years of technical accumulation, they have already made Unreal Engine and MR (mixed reality) more proficient.
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Many years ago, The Weather Channel was actually the same as other weather forecasters. It was also a host with a green cloth. With the advancement of technology over the years, they have also tried to add 3D animation to the program, but it has not become their fixed content because of the time-consuming and laborious production.
Screenshots of their show 9 years ago
In the U.S., there are more than just broadcasts on weather forecasts. In addition to the most basic weather broadcasts, experts will be invited to analyze the trend of the weather and talk about it as a topic that people care about.
Especially when encountering disaster weather, relevant channels will make it into a special program consisting of a series of reports. In addition to the broadcast and guest analysis, the audience will also be given the basic knowledge and precautions of these extreme weather.
Therefore, since 2018, Weather Channel has cooperated with a team called The Future Group to analyze and popularize these meteorological disasters, so that the audience can more vividly and intuitively understand what to do in extreme weather.
Just like when we can feel the wind force of typhoon days most from TV, it is often when some reporters are holding telephone poles in the strong wind and shouting “I can’t speak”. Weather Channel has been well-received by sending hosts to these virtual disaster weather events, which not only allow them to avoid facing the danger, but also achieve the effect of empathy.
So such a wonderful combination of game engine and weather forecast has gradually become the most well-known show on Weather Channel.
It’s just that at this time, there are still many restrictions on the use of this technology in the show. The most obvious of them is the gray circle used for positioning at the feet of the host. At that time, many loyal viewers of this show would also complain about the show: “It is clear that this gray circle is the safest place in the world, and they always tell us to leave quickly.”
In 2020, the two teams simply officially established a new studio, which is responsible for the simulation of weather content, so they have achieved better results.
After the establishment of the new studio, in many cases there were only two circles left in the live broadcast room of Weather Channel, and all the screens and equipment of the studio were blocked from special effects.
The effect that used to be achieved in the background can now be more naturally integrated into the host’s environment, and presented to the audience with a more three-dimensional and realistic effect.
According to their official introduction, in the past, such effects were recorded in advance and post-processed because they were special programs. After the technology upgrade of the new studio, they have been able to achieve such effects as real-time live broadcast, so that these special effects can not only be used in disaster programs, but also in daily weather forecasts.
In one of their recent related videos, we can see that the level of the picture has been improved again, and the gray circle under the host’s feet has disappeared, realizing the complete integration with the scene. According to this trend, it may not be long before we can experience the immersive weather forecast they launched.
Their video content from 5 months ago
Epilogue
It’s just that even such a cool weather forecast is still facing a wave of short videos.
Since two months ago, The Weather Channel has suddenly shifted the focus of their YouTube account operations to short videos. Now opening their official channel, it has been difficult to find a long horizontal video in the past two months.
Compared with special programs that are time-consuming and labor-intensive to produce, perhaps they think that the short, flat and fast rhythm of short videos is more in line with the functional positioning of weather forecasts and more in line with people’s viewing habits today. But under their channel, there are always some people who are still mentioning the landscape content that used to be landscaped.
But like the weather forecasts that have racked their brains to keep viewers on their toes, these self-financing shows are not direction shapers, but followers who have to follow the trend. Technology does not change us, but we use technology to change ourselves.
At the same time, standing on the minority side does not mean being abandoned. Even if you choose to walk on two legs, it still does not prevent the right leg from practicing a set of good footwork. As viewers of The Weather Channel know, when extreme weather strikes again, their lively feature stories will still be on schedule.
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