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LIKE YOU’RE REALLY THERE Bereft of physical venues due to the pandemic, the live events sector has had to turn to virtual sets to serve a new audience online, discovering possibilities for content building and human interaction. “We accelerated the development of our Disguise xR virtual production platform that had been in R&D for two years,” says Tom Rockhill, chief commercial officer for Disguise. “It incorporates LED technology. Video content is displayed on LED walls, surrounding speakers or performers in real time. This results in a much more natural performance. Even people with no media training can feel comfortable on set.” Rockhill points out Katy Perry’s performance in a fully immersive virtual environment at the American Idol Season 20 finale last year, Billie Eilish’s Where Do We Go live stream, an augmented-reality segment at the EuroLeague final, and even corporate events like SAP’s Sapphire Now conference. But such tech isn’t limited to big brands and broadcasters. He explains: “Studios of all sizes are available for hire to meet any budget requirement, and we’ve been working hard for the past 16 months to open up wider access to our xR technology.” Alongside the mass use of Unreal Engine, the increasing speed of GPUs and the affordability of high-quality
tools capable of creating high-quality material outside of big studios has been paramount. Today, any user has access to affordable, photo-realistic scenes, due to the expansion of game engines such as Unreal Engine, which help create high-end content that doesn’t necessarily involve a huge team of artists.” David Dowling, chief revenue officer for Pixotope, adds that virtual sets are increasingly no longer reliant on proprietary hardware and software. “PTZ cameras provide image quality that virtual production systems can key to easily, and through-the-lens tracking has improved and become more readily accessible. It’s possible to set up a solid tracking system in a matter of hours, rather than days. “Pixotope comes with easy-to-use design functionality, and because our integration with Unreal has very little proprietary software behind it, bringing in other outside elements designed with Unreal is simple.”
THERE ARE SEVERAL SOLUTIONS THAT ONLY REQUIRE A SMALL AREA OF GREEN SCREEN AND A STATIC, FIXED-POSITION CAMERA
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