A Brand New Real Time Sinking!

Hello Everyone, Jack here!

It's incredible to finally be able to speak to you all today about this after almost 9 months sitting on this but today we've finally been able to reveal our newest and greatest Real Time Sinking coming next month in April!

As many of you will know I animated and helped produce a new Real Time Sinking last year and at the time I was very proud of it. It featured a totally new and analyzed Sinking Animation, based upon the research by Samuel Halpern, and was done inside Unreal Engine 5 for the first time. I had only been with Titanic: Honor and Glory for just shy of 2 months when I began work on it in February 2023 and my skills inside Unreal Engine were subpar to say the least. The water lacked proper reflections, the lighting engine we used was still the same used in the lesser Unreal Engine 4 and it overall lacked the detail and graphical fidelity we strive for at THG and so in June of 2023 we as a team officially decided we were going to make a brand new Real Time Sinking for 2024.

The amazing Liam Sharpe took the Exterior "Dollhouse" Model and modified it to be able to break into many more sections during the splitting of the ship, and I took the funnels and rigged them with skeletons to allow them to bend and morph as they collapsed. I also up-detailed the exterior slightly with some 3D windows in areas and Nico Murgia created some beautiful curtains to go behind the windows to add that little extra depth to the ship  The Animation Progressed throughout the year visually and in November of 2023 I began animating the sinking properly and in January of 2024 I began adding our newly modeled figurines and particle effects to the animation.

This all led to February of this year where I began to render and edit the animation after our team reviewed the sinking animation. The research paper we based this animation off was done by the incredible Samuel Halpern and you can read that paper for free at the link below.  The 2023 Real Time Sinking was an honor to create and I did touch me emotionally but this new 2024 Real Time Sinking has been truly something indescribable.

I've loved Titanic since I was 8 years old when I first watched James Cameron's 1997 Movie and his updated 2012 Sinking Animation and I had always felt somewhat attached to Titanic but during the course of production on this new animation it has truly been an eye-opening experience.  I can't really put it into words but I don't think I've ever felt this attached to Titanic before and it fills me with so much pride and joy to be able to keep this grand ship, her story and her passengers alive in our hearts 112 Years Later.

After the 2023 Animation Released I vowed I'd never animate the sinking of Titanic again since these things are never easy to make but it was the fan reaction that truly made me want to do this. So many people have reached out asking if we'd ever make another one and the love the 2023 Animation received was more than enough for me to want to create this brand new (and hopefully last for a long time) animation of the Sinking.

It's been an emotional experience to say the least and I won't lie in saying I've gone to bed a few times in tears after researching this sinking and animating the ship. You begin to understand just a fraction of what those 2208 souls went through that night when making something like this and I hope we can all come together on April 14th, 2024 to commemorate their lives and remember the Titanic for not only the ship but also the people who endured it's sinking.

We hope to see you all on April 14th at 9:30pm ET.

Thank You All!
Jack