Inition experiential production team have produced interactives for large audiences at shows and conferences around the world. From camera-flash voting at The Gadget Show Live (see video below) to a democratic cool wall for Top Gear Live, we've engaged audiences from 500 to 20,000 and even pitted them against each other in our Top Gear Test Track challenge.
| Optical flow Using sophisticated algorithms and computer vision we can sense the way an audience is moving simply by waving their hands. This can be used to control on-screening gaming, or even a real object, such as a radi |  |
| Voting cards Each member of the audience is given a card and can vote by showing one side or another to the stage. |  |
| Voice control Microphones can pick up the audience to control aspects of games. In our Top Gear Live show interactive, the loudness of the audience's cheer was used to control the acceleration of the car. |  |
| Camera flash voting First deployed at The Gadget Show Live, audience members voted on their favourite presenter's dance by triggering the flash on their camera or camera-phone. |  |
Gadget Show Live
The producers of the UK’s largest consumer electronics show – The Gadget Show Live, worked closely with Inition to develop ideas and technical solutions to engage the show’s audience in groundbreaking, fun and genuinely new ways.
Inition operates a busy R&D department which always sets out to go beyond the standard brief and for The Gadget Show Live, we developed bespoke software and technical solutions to achieve just that. We developed a unique vote capture system, a mass interactive game and a motion capture showpiece.
Flash Camera Voting
In a signature Gadget Show challenge, two of the presenters went head to head to win over the audience with a singing performance. Rather than asking people to vote for their favourite performer via SMS, Inition created a voting system that could register an individual’s preference via a flash from their camera phone.
Within two seconds, a camera rig on the stage captured each flash of light/vote which was processed by proprietary software developed by Inition Creative Production (? - IS THAT RIGHT). The system was able to register and count each vote and present the results graphically on large LED screens within 15 seconds.
Robust and highly accurate, our reliable system could even detect (and disregard) multiple votes from a single individual up to 80 metres away. It is highly scalable too. With more cameras, we could even increase the field of view of the rig up to 360 degrees and register the votes of tens of thousands of audience members up to 150 metres away and beyond.
Mass Drone Gaming
For the mass drone gaming section, a divided audience competed with the other half in a challenge to steer a mini drone towards a circle on a large LED screen using the motion of their arms and pitch of their voices. The winning team would be the one best able to co-ordinate their arm movements and voices as detected by the Inition sensors. Three standard 720p USB webcams were housed in a single rig angled in multiple directions. Rewritten drivers and settings would achieve the desired framerates. Inition’s own software, based on proprietary and various open source libraries, could accurately translate the motion of people's gesticulations to guide the flying drone towards a target. Further software was able to detect the pitch of vocal noises from the installed microphones - the higher the pitch, the higher the drone would fly.
A Virtual Strip
To get Suzi's avatar to do the strip, Jason entered the marker-less LILA system which is portable enough to be easily rigged up on stage. Jason mimed the start of the strip up until a key moment when an Inition developed animation of a Suzi Perry avatar stripping to a bare wireframe model seamlessy blended into Jason's real time avatar motion.
Conclusion
The Gadget Show Live event was regarded as a huge success receiving exceptional feedback from the audience, producers and even the presenters themselves. The system we used for the Gadget Show Live is part of our growing collection of mass audience interaction software called 'TAP' which features audience movement detection and sound processing for control, driving games with coloured steering wheels and quizzes.
Inition will be running a 'TAP' quiz event in Rome at the end of august which will use coloured voting cards and we are currently in talks with largescale live event organisers which will run up to the end of the year.
Top Gear Live Mass Audience Games
Top Gear Live, the action-packed live version of the TV show, launched the first leg of its World Tour at Earls Court London with an audience interactive developed by Inition that allowed the crowds to test drive two of the world’s hottest supercars, in what was the world’s largest mass live audience participation driving game.
Large Audience Interactive Game
The software, written by Inition's team of 3D developers, allowed the audience to compete in a racing car game live on two large screens. Vehicles were controlled by audience members individually holding up red or green cards to collectively steer either left or right. Acceleration was controlled by how much noise each side generates – the louder the audience shouts the faster the cars go. One half of the audience was pitted against the other in what turned out to be a heavily contested (and very noisy) battle for the chequered flag.
The Audience Interface
Each team had dedicated cameras to analyse the ratio of red to green being shown by the participants. Feeds from microphones were fed into custom software which dictated the acceleration and braking of the cars. The Earl's Court game was played by 4,500 per show, with even larger crowds in Sydney at Acer Arena, Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush which held 7,000 capacity per show.
Rowland French, Executive Producer of Top Gear Live said: “I’ve always wanted to get the Top Gear Live audience participating more in the show and developing an interactive lap of the Top Gear test track is about as perfect as it gets. Through working with Inition on yet another ground-breaking project we have easily succeeded in making the most advanced piece of motoring theatre in our history which I hope our audience will enjoy”.
James Gant, Director at Inition commented: “It’s tremendously exciting to produce such a grand interactive game experience for Top Gear Live. It demonstrates the scalability of Inition’s Interactive Technologies and hints at the future of mass live audience entertainment."
Cool Wall
The audience participation engine was also used for a second part of the show, with a 'democratic' version of Top Gear's infamous Cool Wall. Members of the audience could vote on whether cars appearing in the show were 'Cool' or 'Uncool' with a representation of the car moving across the projected Cool Wall to reflect the audience's opinion. As you can images, this wasn't always respected as, thank to a Clarkson-over-ride mode, Jeremy usually over-turned the audience's decision with his own.
Top Trumps 3D
Inition partnered with Winning Moves, owners of popular children's card game Top Trumps to launch its first ever 3D Augmented Reality. The launch event at Hamleys Toy Store, London included 5 AR enabled packs with 10 packs in total now using Inition’s MagicSymbol technology to extends game play to an interactive on-screen experience.
Players hold the cards in front of a web cam and Inition's MagicSymbol AR technology unlocks immersive 3D augmented content, posing new questions and displaying live stats as the player interacts with the computer. The first Top Trumps game to go 3D was 'Bugs' with a life-size tarantula jumping out of the player's hand. Inition developed all the 3D CGI work included character animation and interface design to enable user interaction and control. Inition developed a single app with user's ability to download new packs as they come online.
Other 3D packs include Horrible Histories, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), Transformers 2, Star Trek, Ben 10 Alien Force and Spongebob Squarepants. Check out the Top Trumps 3D site.
MagicSymbol AR: Launch of the Audi A1
After highly successful MagicSymbol augmented reality campaigns for BMW, Toyota and Kia, Inition were approached to deliver a new augmented reality campaign to launch the Audi A1 in showrooms across the UK.
Visitors were able to interact with a photorealistic model of Audi’s new hatchback before its official launch. By holding up a special Audi branded ‘MagicSymbol’ printed in brochures in front of kiosks, software would recognise the symbol and augment a fully detailed 360 degree model of the A1 as if it were parked on the brochure held by the viewer.
Inition’s skilled animators created the detailed image and animations of the car in 3D Studio Max using references from Audi’s original CAD data which were optimised for real time rendering.
Using proprietary algorithms, Inition created a fully realistic experience with no lag between the movement of the MagicSymbol and animation of the car.
Extending the experience to the home
Inition also extended the experience to the home. Users with a webcam could download an Audi logo that had been specially encoded for use with the MagicSymbol augmented reality technology. By printing it off and holding it towards their webcam, users would see the Audi A1 appear on their monitor and be able to interact with the car's features as if they were in the showroom.
By rotating the MagicSymbol, the car would rotate too and users could explore the car further by clicking on any of the on-screen icons such as “add panoramic roof” and “open the boot”.
Audi were so pleased with the results that they commissioned Inition to create a similar campaign for the Audi A7 Sportback where Inition added even further interactive features such as the ability for the user to change the paint colour and take the car for a ‘virtual test drive' using the arrow keys on their keyboard.
PureMax: AR Competition for Trade Show
To promote Croda International's new omega 3 technology PureMax™, Inition worked closly with Croda to design a character that would promote their brand in the format of a competition at up and coming trade shows. Various prizes were awarded via a fun animation of Mr PureMax fishing off a desert island.
“It was great to see Mr Puremax come to life in a 3D animation! A really original way to draw people to our stand at Vitafoods in Geneva this May, proving to be an effective way to introduce current and prospect customer to our PureMax™ offer in a fun and novel way. We can’t wait to put it into action at another exhibition later in the year!”
- Laura Kelly, Croda Health Care, Marketing Co-ordinator
Portugal Telecom Augmented Reality Rebrand
Brief:
Arcstream approached Inition with a brief to unveil Portugal Telecom’s new company branding using Augmented Reality during a live stage show.
Solution:
Inition developed an Augmented Reality reveal of Portugal Telecom's new logo. This was integrated into a live presentation from the CEO Zenial Bava whereby he held the new logo in his hands on a huge 26.9m wide projection screen behind him on stage.
The very large projection display used 6 projectors and high quality broadcast cameras were utilised to enable the Augmented Reality presentation to appear at broadcase quality. An audience of 5000 people wactched the reveal including Henrique Granadeiro, Chairman of Portugal Telecom, along with the board of directors who then joined Mr. Bava on stage to experience holding their new logo in augmented reality.
AR to promote opening of The O2
Brief:
Create an Augmented Reality competition-based installation to drive footfall to the newly opened O2 in Greenwich, South-East London, London's newest and most hi-tech entertainment venue.
Solution:
Inition's MagicSymbol technology was deployed in what was the largest ever augmented-reality-based campaign. Over 500,000 MagicSymbol promo cards were distributed around London's most busy stations, squares and markets over a 5 week period.
Mobile car-mounted screens allowed participants to reveal their prize using an augmented reality mechanic. Each of the cards were prize-winning. Participants held up their card to the camera to see it come to life on screen, and discover their reward. Prizes included 2 for 1 meals, free drinks and cinema, concert and sports event tickets at The O2.
After finding out what they have won, participants made their way to The O2 in Greenwich, where a third kiosk unit inside the venue itself allows them to redeem their card for a prize voucher.