Ancient Powers GFX: Gamifying ancient history
The brief
Ancient Powers is a captivating five-part series co-produced by BBC Studios and the popular Chinese streaming service Bilibili.
Immersing viewers in interconnected stories of trade, war, and survival from the earliest civilizations to the end of the Western Roman Empire, Ancient Powers presents history as an epic game of strategy and luck, comparing each ancient power's approach to key problems. The series adopts a Top Trumps-style format, revealing the social, technological, and physical battles these civilizations undertook for survival and domination.
We were tasked with creating a wide range of visual elements, from GFX maps to motion capture – all to showcase the rise and fall of ancient powers such as Egypt, China, India, Greece, and Rome.
Client
BBC Studios and BiliBili
Year delivered
2023
What we did
Our role was crucial in shaping the show's distinctive look, with graphics taking centre stage, replacing the traditional narrator. The visuals were designed to convey personality and character, making them the primary storyteller, while avoiding the use of on-screen text that would require localisation for different countries the show will be distributed in.
We predominantly used Maya for GFX to craft everything from timelines to epic board game-like maps surrounded by volumetric fog to infographics and themed icons representing each ancient power — all delivered in a short time frame of just seven months. With all six episodes delivered in the same month, strong communication, collaboration, scheduling and budgeting was pivotal. During the busiest periods, we had a team of 18 working on the production, alongside the BBC Studios team, including Executive Producer Amanda Lyon, Series Producer Simon Winchcombe, and directors Ian Hunt and Ross Kirby.
As Ancient Powers is geared towards a younger audience, we were tasked with achieving a stylised and gamified look, making history accessible and engaging. To ensure we were delivering dynamic visuals that were historically accurate, a team of over 30 experts were consulted to ensure authenticity. This included a combination of historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and even a descendant of Confucius!
Working from fully fleshed-out scripts, we built a foundation for the look of the show with concept artist Tom Morton. As scheduling and budget didn’t allow for full 3D animations, we developed a 2.5D solution to illustrate characters and place them into a 3D space.
We were hands-on with BBC Studios from the very beginning of the production, spending three days in script meetings with the directorial team prior to the shoot. With the historical stories being so complex, the production team felt strongly that GFX would help to relay them as visually as possible. Allowing us to be so hands-on at an early stage helped aid us with the final look, as the camera movements helped drive the GFX. By introducing fly-throughs and match moves, we were able to move from scene to scene seamlessly – moving from past to present.
We also produced motion capture shots using some of the mocap data previously captured during an internal R&D session. We used this data to animate stylised faceless soldiers for each of the five powers.
The results
The Ancient Powers GFX final result saw us deliver stunning visuals in a tight timeframe. Thanks to strong production planning, communication and expertise in motion graphics, we delivered a project we’re extremely proud of and demonstrates our wider skills across visual effects.
Ancient Powers is streaming on Bilibili now, with wider distribution confirmed globally at a later date.
To see more of this project visit here, or head to our work page to see more from us.
