Client
Role
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Broadcast
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3D Animation
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AR VR
Diablo Winds Explainer
Diablo winds are hot, dry, offshore winds that blow from inland toward the California coast — supercharging wildfire conditions by stripping moisture from vegetation and pushing flames faster and farther than they would otherwise travel. For a West Coast NBC station, I created a broadcast explainer animation and a full suite of AR-ready 3D assets to help on-air talent communicate the science and danger of Diablo winds to a live television audience.
The Challenge
Making a fast-moving, invisible atmospheric phenomenon visible — and broadcast-ready in two formats simultaneously.
Diablo winds are defined by speed, heat, and direction — none of which are easy to show on screen. The explainer needed to communicate complex meteorological behavior clearly to a general broadcast audience while also delivering production-ready assets for use in live augmented reality segments. That meant the work had to function as both a finished animation and a flexible real-time toolkit — two different technical pipelines with two different sets of requirements.
The Approach
One creative vision. Two production pipelines. Built to work together from the start.
The animation was developed in Cinema 4D and After Effects, building a clear visual narrative around how Diablo winds form, move, and interact with the landscape to accelerate wildfire risk. 3D assets were modeled across Cinema 4D, Blender, and 3ds Max, then textured using Photoshop and the Adobe Substance Collection — built with AR deployment in mind from the ground up.
For the AR pipeline, all assets were optimized and exported for use in Max Reality — a proprietary broadcast AR platform used by major television networks for live on-air visualization. Optimization for real-time performance required careful attention to geometry, texture resolution, and asset structure to ensure each element could be deployed live without compromising visual quality. The result was a suite of broadcast-ready AR assets that gave on-air talent the flexibility to visually enhance their Diablo winds coverage in real time.
Working as both animator and AR pipeline lead on this project, I managed the full production scope — from initial scene layout and animation through asset preparation, optimization, and final AR delivery.
The Impact
A finished explainer and a live AR toolkit — delivered as one cohesive production.
The animation aired on a West Coast NBC station to explain Diablo wind behavior and wildfire risk to a broadcast audience. The accompanying AR asset suite gave on-air meteorologists a flexible, production-ready visual toolkit for live segments — extending the life and reach of the work beyond the original explainer. By building both deliverables within a single production pipeline, the project demonstrated how broadcast animation and real-time AR assets can be developed together efficiently without duplicating effort.
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