The Octonauts Director Nicky Phelan talks through just some of the process in creating the Deep Sea Octo Lab!

Stephanie Simpson, The Octonauts Head Writer, created a story that brought The Octonauts team to visit the deepest place on Earth - the Mariana Trench. Mud volcanoes, a sulphur lake, an avalanche of falling rocks, yeti crabs and giant isopods, there were lots of exciting new things to create, chief among these was a new addition to the Octonaut’s fleet of vehicles and bases: the DEEP SEA OCTO LAB!

In the world of Octonauts, Tweak is such a genius that she designed and constructed the Octo Lab pretty much single-handed, and the Octonauts lend a hand to assemble it. But behind the scenes, it took quite a number of us to get her creation on screen.

Check out some early design work from Meomi, the very talented Octonauts creators Michael Murphy and Vicki Wong. All of the Octonauts’ vehicles are inspired by real sea creatures; the Octopod inspired by an Octopus, the Gup A an anglerfish, Gup B a shark and so on;  the Octo Lab is no different, and is inspired by bioluminescent jellyfish. 

Based off Meomi’s designs, Eoin Kavanagh, our technical TD, blocked out some previz of the lab so we got a sense of how the scale and design was working with the characters. Here you can see a wireframe playback of the basic shapes of the lab taking shape with the characters in position for reference.

Octonauts Deep Sea Station Floor Turnaround:

Then we built up the detail of the model, Eoin working very closely with Michael O’Callaghan, one of our modellers on the show. As the Octonauts assemble the Lab at the start of the special, we had to make sure all the levels really worked together; here’s some overview renders of the various layers. 

We also had to work up the detail of the various areas in the Lab; the upper level HQ console area, the mess area and laboratory for Shellington, The Octo Buggie’s hangar and Tweak’s work room. Rest assured in future Octonauts seasons the Octo Lab will get a few more outings!

Based on the grey scale model, we moved on to texturing and shading. Meomi designed some great screens and deep sea posters specifically for the Lab, unlike ones we’re used to seeing in the Octopod and Gups; there’s even Tweak’s blue prints of the Octo Lab and Vegibot in there.

Stephen O’Connor, our art director, Michal Uhrushki, our lead texture artist, and Paul Sheehy, Lighting Techincal Director, all worked closely together dressing, texturing and lighting the sets.
Check out some of the renders:

In the special, at one point power is cut off to the Octo Lab, so at lighting, we also had to design and create the Octo Lab without power. Paul and Stephen designed what the Lab looks like when the power is cut off and emergency back-up lighting kicks in.

One of our favourite shots in the special is when Tweak powers up the Octo Lab for the first time, and the lights all come on illuminating the dark surroundings. Truth be told she had some help from Paul again, here’s a movie of his lighting test.

And as soon as the episode aired on CBeebies, it took a matter of days for us to see creative Octo-fans creating their own home-made versions of it; below from the Octonauts Facebook page, we have Breanne Squires and Marie Derry’s home-made Octo Lab cakes, and Sue Fendt’s DIY Lab play set.

Have you seen the Mariana Trench Special yet? If so we hope you had as much fun watching it as we did making it!