Shooting Man Utd for Pointy Stick's Epson 3D Promo
Inition's sister company, Pointy Stick has created a stereoscopic 3D promotional film for Epson featuring some of Manchester United’s top stars. The 3 minute piece, conceived and executed entirely in stereoscopic 3D was created to help launch Epson's first range of home 3D projectors and celebrate their partnership with the world-famous club.
The film, directed by Pointy Stick’s Michael Lindsay and Gaute Hesthagen begins with the players in a black abstract space with intimate super slow-motion sequences portraying the drama at the heart of the battle between player, ball and gravity. The combination of shooting in stereoscopic 3D and at 1000 frames-per-second, both techniques that allow us to see more, reveals the underlying forces, decisions and skills at play in what are normally unseen fleeting moments of the game. The piece transitions into playful behind-the-scenes moments with the players on set, watching themselves and each other in slow-motion 3D, for the first time, using a 3D Epson projector in a living room set, shot in the same studio.
The Challenges
With such rare access to world-class players, the aspirations for the project were high but meticulous planning was required for such a technically demanding shoot given only three hours access to the players. The stereoscopic treatment was developed in detail with a 3D aesthetic to reward the viewer with a rich, intimate experience, rather than just a 3D-effect; by shooting against black, all the available depth is levereged by just player and ball creating heightened volume, texture and definition that brings to life every tensed muscle, ripple in fabric, droplet of sweat, impact of player and ball.
Michele Brown. Head of Advertising Creative at Epson said: "This beautifully shot 3D promo demonstrates the quality of the Epson 3D projector and the power of 3D as a visual medium". Michael Lindsay, Creative Director at Pointy Stick comment: "Our aim was to provide a taste of the athleticism and skills of the modern game of football in a medium that allows us to share their world. The piece was carefully crafted to create a powerful visual experience that fully exploits the mostly-untapped potential of stereoscopic 3D film-making."
Epson's Range of 3D Projectors
The stereoscopic 3D promo is being shown at events around the world to show off Epson's first consumer 3D projectors. The Pro Cinema 6010 is aimed at high-end home cinema installations whereas the 5010 is aimed at the living room. Both projectors require active glasses and both include an HD wireless transmission unit.
Pointy Stick also delivered a TV commercial and shot a behind-the-scenes documentary footage directed by Chris Holt. Stereoscopic 3D production support and camera equipment was provided by Inition. Pointy Stick completed the edit in-house with final finishing completed at Onsight. 3 different 3D camera systems were used for the shoot including:
- Epic hand-held easy-rig (details)
- Phantom high-speed rig (details)
- Mini-cam documentary rig (details)
Credits
Directors: Michael Lindsay and Gaute Hesthagen
Stereo producer: Andy Millns
Line producer: Mark Parsons
DOP: Brendan McGinty
For more information please contact Alix Wood, Pointy Stick on 07989 068 416, alix@pointystickfilms.com
360 Degree Immersive Installation: Henley Regatta Experience
The Brief
To produce an immersive experience for the Henley River and Rowing museum that would allow visitors to experience a race in the Henley Regatta from the Cox's point of view.
Solution
Inition created a bespoke immersive 360 degree experience using a head-mounted display. Two races were shot at the Henley Royal Regatta and Women's Regatta. In order to capture the all the action, the races were shot using a custom designed 360 filming rig, mounted in the stern of the boat where the Cox would normally sit.
Museum visitors wearing the installed head-mounted display which, thanks to a precision intertial tracking, allowed them to look around through a full 360 degrees of the action. A stereo sound track was also created with audio recorded from the races.
Post-production took place at Inition's and involved a conversion of captured 'donut' high definition video into 360° panoramic format. Inition also developed the software to view the 360° video inside a head-mounted display and interface to the tracking system.
3D Feature: Award Winning 3D in Extreme Environments for 'Amphibious'
For Brian Yuzna’s much anticipated horror film, Amphibious 3D, Komodo Films required a 3D specialist who could deliver high quality stereoscopic experience and expertise in tough humid conditions on a low budget.
Inition supplied stereoscopic consultancy and equipment for Amphibious 3D, a feature film that won the ‘Best Feature Film’ award at the 2010 3D Stereo Media European 3D Film Festival in a competition of 48 entries.
It has wrapped and is now in post production at Galaxy Studios, Belguim. The Netherlands/ Belgium/ Singaporean co-production will be the first 3D movie ever made in Southeast Asia.
Inition’s Asia Pacific office worked with Komodo Films providing consultancy on pre-production, storyboards, camera and monitoring equipment plus post-production. The shoot took place over 2 months in Jakarta where Inition’s Head of Production for Asia Pacific, Markus Stone, was the lead Stereographer and headed the 3D department. Filming was shot on REDS (WHAT TYPE?)
Markus commented: “This was a complex 3D shoot, and was produced in often challenging conditions including the Javanese jungle, on board a boat and in a studio that was a humid 36 degrees every day with the air conditioners turned on. It just goes to show that great 3D is possible on a budget.”
The film now enters the 3D post production phase, with the VFX slate being handled by Victor 3D Studios and Grid in Brussels, with DI handled by Galaxy Studios, all under the instruction of Post Supervisor Hans Van Helden. "For 3D the DI process is a little different", says van Helden; "Firstly you need the capacity to decode and display a dual image stream; in our case RED R3D files. Then there is a process of conforming to the 3D rushes from the 2D offline edit and tweaking the 3D to make sure you have perfect alignment. After that, we have the 'matchgrade' process."
Amphibious is due for release in June 2010.
3D Filming: Immersive Experience For Wannabe Sports Stars
Inition helped Irish production company vStream create the world’s first personalised stereoscopic 3D experience – the AVIVA Stadium 3D Experience.
The concept of the project was to make the viewer feel that he or she was a team player in the Irish football or rugby team, creating a sense of anticipation and the rush of preparing to play to a crowd of over 50,000 people.
To create the illusion of ‘being there’, Inition chose to use 2 X Iconix minicams on a bolt rig attached to a steadicam. The signals from these were fed through to a StereoBrain processor so the footage could be monitored on a 2D 7” HD-SDI monitor and media was recorded to two Nano Drives.
The entire sequence was to be filmed from a ‘point of view’ perspective so Inition matched the separation of the two Iconix cameras with the natural distance between the human eyes. A Steadicam operator created a smooth flowing sequence, replicating the real motion of someone walking.
To further cement the sense of immersion, visitors had their photograph’s taken via a webcam as they entered the 3D Experience temporary building. Their face was then incorporated into the video and teammates and crowds would even refer to the viewer by name.
Inition also provided the 14 x 24” Hyundai P240W 3D LCD screens with 3D passive glasses which were installed into individual viewing booths.
The Aviva Stadium 3D experience later went on tour. With it being the first of its kind in the world, it attracted massive television media attention.
3D Filming: Tony Hawk on Tour
Working with extreme sports production specialist Boomerang Productions, Inition supplied stereoscopic equipment, crew, consultancy and 3D post services for a half hour 3D programme following Tony Hawk on his European tour in Berlin and Brighton.
Due to a combination of low weight, compact size and high quality image output, Inition chose to shoot everything with Toshiba IK-HD1(1920x1080i) minicams to capture the essence and drama of the competitor's daring skate tricks.
Capturing the Action from all Angles
Inition’s crew established three camera positions during the Berlin shoot.
A Fig Rig gave the cameraman incredible flexibility to capture fast motion shots. A Polecam lightweight jib was positioned at the top of a ramp side which captured stunning sweeping overhead shots including those classic 3D shots when the skater appears to be jumping out the screen. The third stereoscopic rig was mounted on a regular tripod which was used to capture ground level footage and close ups.
Real Time Stereoscopic Monitoring
To monitor the action, each rig was connected to a StereoBrain Processor. Battery powered and highly lightweight, the StereoBrain processor can process a left and right signal and output a variety of 3D modes which can be viewed on a 2D or 3D monitor. During the Tony Hawk shoot, Inition’s crew used StereoBrain processors to output an anaglyph feed to 7” HD-SDI monitors. Media was recorded to Nanoflash solid state recorders.
Using the three camera set up, Inition was able to deliver motion rich, immersive 3D footage for Boomerang Productions. Boomerang Productions delivered a 2D edit to Inition where it was geometrically corrected and mastered into 3D for 3D Blu-ray authoring,
3D Promo Shoot: Nissan FreeRide Tour
Leading extreme sports television producer Boomerang Film approached Inition to produce a high octane 3D promotional video to support Nissan’s sponsorship of the 2011 FreeRide World Tour after a successful collaboration shooting Tony Hawk on his European skateboard tour in Berlin and Brighton for Canal +
Inition provided stereoscopic consultancy, two portable 3D camera systems, a stereographer and camera assistant for two shooting days as well as 3D post production services including 3D fixing, depth grading and mastering.
Super Fast Turnaround
Inition were commissioned with the ambitious task of delivering a 3D online post, short promo film and 30 second trailer on a Blu-ray disc within 48 hours of the final shoot. Inition’s team edited approximately 4 – 5 hours of footage into a 2.5 minute compelling promo film in time for the opening of the Nissan FreeRide World Tour.
Behind the Scenes
The offline edit was undertaken by the client in Avid and the final post stages were completed at Inition. We were provided with a graded DPX sequence (Digital Picture Exchange) for the left and right channels which were ingested into our Speedgrade XR suite, where 3D geometry correction and a depth grade were performed. The final piece was then mastered in the side-by-side format for Blu-ray.
The Right Tool for the Job
The client required a stereoscopic video capture system which was as lightweight as possible, able to take POV shots and portable enough to be taken to challenging locations such as mountain faces. Always keen to embrace a challenge, Inition developed a custom built helmet with a mounted 3D rig based around two Toshiba Minicams recording to Nano Flash recorders on Compact Flash cards.
Small enough to achieve an interaxial separation of just 4mm, the custom built rig was highly versatile and could be controlled and genlocked with a camera control unit up to 30 metres away. The recorders were synced (in terms of being triggered for recording) via a breakout cable joined to a single trigger.
Alignment of the cameras was performed before mounting to the helmet with wedges to fix roll and vertical offset. Being a fixed interaxial, calculations were made to allow for the best 3D in the given environment with locked off cameras. The professional athletes were prepped before shooting, so that they were aware of the 3D limits i.e. how close to get to objects.
Conclusion
With its production partner Boomerang Films, Inition delivered an attention holding 3D promotional film to Nissan on schedule, which was taken on tour around major European ski destinations in a Nissan branded truck complete with 4D alpine mountain breeze effects.
3D Shoot: LG 'Rare Butterflies' Commercial
As part of LG’s multi million pound 3DTV advertising campaign, Inition worked with Framestore to shoot a 3D cinema advert which aims to show film-lovers how the 3D experience can be recreated in their living rooms. The campaign for media agency Mindshare was directed by The IT Crowd star Richard Ayoade. It features comedy duo Tim Key and his sidekick Lloyd Woolf who take viewers on a brief history of 3D through to the latest developments and what the future holds.
A Tongue-in-Cheek Look at 3D
The advert is a tongue-in-cheek take on current formulaic 3D showreels and starts with Woolf dressed up as Godzilla destroying a cardboard city below him. The sequence then pans through other popular 3D viewing genres such as football and nature, before ending in a stage set front room with Key and Woolf on the sofa and the strap line "Bringing the magic of 3D home with LG". The advert was shot in one take on Inition's SI-2K/Neutron camera system.
Inition's Andy Millns was the stereographer on-set. Post-production at Framestore included adding VFX to the live action sequence which was on-lined by respected VFX artist and post-production consultant David Cox. David Cox commented: "I was very happy with the material from the shoot, the optical line up between the cameras was very good and the colour matching was as close as I've seen."
The cinema advert marks LG's first foray onto the silver screen and will be shown alongside screenings of 3D movies Tron: Legacy and the new Chronicles of Narnia film, starting on December 10th.
You can watch the advert here (in 2D only) or pay us a visit to see in 3D!
3D Shoot: Rollercoaster 3D to Promote New Gameshow
Red Bee Media hired Inition to shoot a 3D advert promoting a new theme park based gameshow - 'Scream If You Know The Answer' for UKTV.
The brief was to replicate the adrenaline inducing feeling of riding the white knuckle rides at Thorpe Park and after a tough recce day trying all the coasters at the park, the team chose Colussus, the UK's only quadruple-corkscrew coaster.
At the front of the ride the Inition team installed two SI-2K Mini Digital Cinema Cameras in a parallel arrangement on a rugged mounting system designed by Extreme Facilities. To adhere to health and safety requirements, Extreme Facilities modified a crash dummy which housed and contained all the recording equipment.
The footage was finished in-house using our 2K Iridas SpeedGrade system which is suitable for large and small screen 3D projects, ideal as this 3D advert was shown in cinemas and on 3D TV sets in over 1,200 Sky 3D pubs.
Absolut Vodka 3D Powerpoint
Stream Worldwide approached Inition to create a 3D PowerPoint presentation for Pernod Ricard UK’s top selling brand label Absolut. The presentation was for their annual sales and marketing conference which was held at Twickenham Rugby Stadium in September 2009.
Lee Spooner headed up Inition’s team to create the stereoscopic 3D CGI content based around the latest ad campaign for Absolut. The creative featured a 3D Absolut vodka bottle, paper animated lanterns and animated text. These were then rendered out as stereoscopic 3D video files and integrated into the latest cutting edge 3D power point software: S3D Presenter. James Marks and Inition’s technical team projected this onto our spectral 240 3D stereoscopic screen (426x320cm) from our duality 3D projection system.
S3D presenter software is a high-end dynamic 3D PowerPoint presentation add on that allows slides to be played back in real time and integrated with pre rendered 3D video files. Inition is one of the first companies in the UK to offer this service.
Turned around in just 4 days
AR for Oral-B Pro Expert Launch
Inition were approached by GPJ to create an engaging Augmented Reality piece of animation that supports the launch of the new Oral-B tooth paste
The AR was shown at an industry launch of the new Oral-B Pro-Expert toothpaste, showcasing the revolutionary technology involved in creating the new product.
The AR piece was used to reinforce the key messages about the product from the presentations and videos shown at the launch, as well as allowing the user to get a quick and easy understanding of the key ingredients of the paste and what areas it tackles
Interactive Touchscreen Poster
To back up the launch campaign and the Augmented Reality piece, Inition developed and created an interactive touchscreen poster, allowing the user to navigate through the benefits of the new product and watch videos highlighting the 8 benefits that the new paste provides.
Augmented Christmas - 'Wish Fairy'
Brief
Award winning live entertainment specialists Melbry Events, commissioned Inition to help create a magical interactive experience for their Christmas Grotto at London's largest department store. Melbry Events tasked Inition to create a memorable encounter for children based on their Wish Fairy character.
Solution
Inition created a bespoke augmented reality installation which delivered an enchanting fairy tale experience for children. By holding up a MagicSymbol card to the screen, children could summon the Wish Fairy before flying her around the screen. The Wish Fairy granted them one Christmas wish with a wave of her magic wand before dissappearing in a poof of fairy star dust.
Inition provided the entire AR solution including animation, augmented reality software, hardware and installation.
Results
Inition's Wish Fairy installation delivered the wow factor by enabling the children to 'magically' summon the Wish Fairy into their world. Using augmented reality delivered the wow factor and the installation has been delighting hundreds of children every day at Melbry Events Christmas Grottos in London and Derby.
BBC Merlin AR Launch
For the launch of the BBC’s flagship Saturday night TV show Merlin, Inition were briefed to recreate the magic of the show using our MagicSymbol technology, for a joint cinema and website download campaign.
Installed in 10 cinemas across the UK, Merlin MagicSymbol Kiosks wowed thousands of cinema-goers with magical animation and exclusively shot video content featuring actor Colin Morgan in the title role.
Over the 3 week cinema campaign period MagicSymbol was deemed a highly successful campaign when compared to other marketing campaigns in the same environment, with 45% of cinema goers directly interacting with the Merlin MagicSymbol installation. Sample the magic yourself by downloading the software here(PC+webcam+printer required), or on the BBC’s Merlin site.
BMW Augmented Reality Campaign
BMW initiated an online augmented reality campaign to promote the launch of the BMW Z4. Inition worked with Dare to create a unique interactive online brand experience supporting the TV campaign in which a roadster is steered across a blank canvas with the tires providing paint trails and colourful ‘expressions of joy’.
Powered by Inition’s augmented reality technology MagicSymbol, users create their own ‘expression of joy’ online. Users can test drive a virtual 3D Z4 and record their paint trails via the webcam and upload images and videos of their creations to YouTube and Facebook.
Inition's / Dare's BMW AR campaign was rated number 1 in a run-down of the best AR campaigns in Brand Republic. See the run-down for yourself here (we also got the number 6 slot for our Toyota IQ campaign).
Read Revolution magazine's feature "Behind the scenes: BMW's augmented reality campaign" here.
Test drive your own Z4 here.
Cadbury Zingolo 2D to 3D
Using Cadbury Dairy Milk’s recent ‘Zingalo’ ad, which celebrates the chocolate brand’s fair trade credentials, Inition converted the footage into a fabulous 3D Stereoscopic version.
The process of converting the existing 2D film into 3D was turned around in record time. The Zingolo ad lent itself well to 3D conversion because it features a head emerging from a garage and in 3D it appears actually to float right in front of the cinema audience creating a very impressive cinema experience.
BREAKING NEWS
Cadbury Dairy Milk’s ‘Zingalo’ advert has won the 3D Cinema Advertising Award at this year’s British Television Advertising Awards. The advert, which celebrates the brand’s fair trade credentials, featured a buoyant head which appeared to actually float in front of the cinema audience creating a very dramatic viewing experience.
The Award recognises the best TV & cinema commercials made by British advertising agencies and production companies. Working with Drum PHD and Fallon, Inition converted the footage into a fabulous 3D Stereoscopic version which screened prior to James Cameron’s 3D epic Avatar in over 200 cinemas nationwide.
De Beers 3D Film for Window Installations
Inition's sister company Holition partnered with 3D film production experts Pointy Stick to shoot a beautifully art directed promotional film detailing De Beers most dramatic pieces. The 3D film was displayed on a lenticular screens in London, New York and Tokyo, which do not require 3D viewing glasses. The first film was deployed globally, and a second film commissioned for Christmas 2010.
Technical Production
Inition provided stereoscopic expertise for the shoot and throughout post-production on what was a technically challenging 3D workflow requiring 8 individual camera views (rather than the standard left/right for 'normal' stereoscopic 3D) to allow deployment on Alioscopy glasses-free screens, supplied and configured by Inition.
Post production for auto-stereoscopic (glasses-free) live action films is a complex business, requiring effectively 8 separate timelines, each from a slightly different perspective. Retouching and rig removal are a particular challenge.
Deployment
100,000 people stopped and viewed the screen in the first four days of launch. The significant PR exposure that resulted helped lift perceptions of De Beers above those of being a typical jeweller and into the realms of innovative thinkers engaging their consumers with originality and creativity. The film has been previewed in New York and London and China.
"We are delighted with the quality of the production and the ability of the Alioscopy screens to stop people in their tracks. Feedback from Japan has been amazing. The campaign has generated a lot of interest and intrigue into the appearance of the diamonds in 3D and also into the technology that makes it possible." said Robert Cheng, De Beers Marketing Director
Check out Holition's site at www.holition.com and Pointy Stick at www.pointystickfilms.com
Distant Thunder: Exploring Africa in 3D
World-renowned filmmakers Deeble & Stone partnered with Inition to co-produce a 3D wildlife pilot in Africa called Distant Thunder 3D.
The shoot took place in Kenya and was produced in association with equipment manufacturer P+S TECHNIK. During the production process the team identified and perfected the 3D rigs necessary to shoot wildlife in the field of Africa. Being an environment of widely varying scales, Inition used equally a large variety of interaxial lens distances to capture the extremities of the landscape, from extreme close ups of chameleons eating lunch to the final dramatic time-lapse sequence of the Kenyan night sky where two still cameras were positioned 30 metres apart.
Over the space of a month Inition used a variety of 3D rigs - both commercial models and custom built. These included mirror rigs, 3D time-lapse set ups, side-by-side configurations and gyro stabilized, using SI-2K Minicams and shooting uncompressed RAW, recording to solid state drives so full creativity could be achieved in the post production process.
Every evening, the team reviewed the daily rushes on a large 3D screen to develop what was working and what was not. Over a two week period and in challenging stormy condiitons, we obtained enough spectacular footage to edit together a stunning 10 minute pilot.
The promo premiered at the Dimension 3 S3D expo in Paris in 2010 and was later shown to audiences at the Berlin Film Festival 2010(?) and the Cannes Film Festival where it received a highly postive response.
Future of 3D #3 : Design, Print, Fly!
Future of 3D #3: Design, Print and Fly!
Co-founder and director of Intion Stuart Cupit, also keen photographer and kite-flyer, decided to set himself a challenge to build a rig capable of taking panoramic aeriel photos from his parafoil kite...
The Spec
The rig needed moving parts, had to be light-weight but strong enough to hold servos and a digital camera and withstand the odd crash landing. Stuart designed the rig using 3D Studio Max and included 5 independent moveable stages, a complete gear system, fittings for 4 servos, a microcontroller, batteries and, most importantly, a digital camera.
The 3D Print
The final design was printed out in one go (yes, no assembly!) using our Invision-XT 3D printer. The various joints and gears were designed in place with the 0.1mm clearance between any two parts required to allow them to move independently. The VisiJet SR200 build material used is strong enough to be for functional finished products.
Servo Control and Support
The gears, axels and sleeves freely revolve and the fleixble nature of the material, when printed in thin sections, allowed the servos to be held in place by sprung hinged latches. The servos follow a pre-recorded set of moves using a Milinst Wizard board.
A Picavet suspension allowed the camera rig to self-level and prevents twisting. A geared mechanism reduced the speed of one of the servos by 20 to 1 to allow the rig to be rotated. The gears were printed in place and once support material is removed just work with no assembly!
The Flight
The whole rig was attached to a Sutton Flowform 16 kite using a pair wire hangups on 200m of cord. The kite needed a 25mph wind to get the 1kg rig into the air. Flown from Hamstead Heath, the rig took 50 blurry photos the first time! The second flight got some great shots looking south across London, and some bemused looks from on-lookers!
The kit we used: 3D Systems Invision XT (in-house), 3D Studio Max, Sony digital camera, Milinst Wizard Servo controller board, Sutton Flowform 16 kite
Check out our 3D Printing Service and our Future of 3D blog at fo3d.posterous.com for our latest experiments in 3D.
About our 'Future of 3D' series
The 'Future of 3D' series is about exploring the boundaries of future 3D technology through non-commercial creative projects. Supporting this type of work is core to Inition's core values of developing new uses of 3D technology, supporting creativity and nurturing the passion of it's staff and collaborators. If you have an idea for a 'Future of 3D' project, we'd love to hear from you.
Future of 3D: #1 - Scan, Print, Explode!
Our first 'Future of 3D' project!
We decided to have some 3D fun with Shannon's head to celebrate our 10th Birthday and the launch of our 'Future of 3D' series.
We really enjoyed this side project as it combined a wide range of our skills and 3D technologies. But mainly because it involved blowing stuff up!
If you're interested in finding out more, make sure you watch the video above.
Some of the kit we used: ZPrinter 450, Mephisto EX Scanner, Phantom/Quasar 3D Stereoscopic Filming Rig
We'd like to point out that no Shannon's were harmed in this project, although strangely enough. he had a slight headache afterwards. Check out our Future of 3D blog at fo3d.posterous.com for our latest experiments.
About our 'Future of 3D' series
The 'Future of 3D' series is about exploring the boundaries of future 3D technology through non-commercial creative projects. Supporting this type of work is core to Inition's core values of developing new uses of 3D technology, supporting creativity and nurturing the passion of it's staff and collaborators. If you have an idea for a 'Future of 3D' project, we'd love to hear from you.
Future of 3D: #2 - Sketch, Sculpt, Print!
Future of 3D: #2 - Sketch, Scult, Print
As part of Inition’s “Future of 3D” series, our 3D printing team worked with BA design student Kristin Katzer from the London College of Communication to realise a packaging design for fruits.
Concept
The concept for Kristin's organic design was based on structures of nature, in particular her research into “tafoni structures” produced during the calcification of porous sandstone.
Freeform Design
Designing these organic structures using a typical 3D CAD package would have proved very difficult, however with Inition's guidance Kristin realised the design through the intuitive interface of the Sensable Phantom Omni in conjunction with the Claytools software. Claytools is a design package specially tailored towards haptic modelling, allowing the user to directly sculpt, manipulate and feel the surface of a model through a pen-line interface attached to a motorised force-feedback arm.
3D Print
After adding colour to the CAD model, the complex design was prepared for print Paul Armand, one of Inition's 3D printing specialists. Our full colour 3D ZPrinter 450 printed out the model over-night including two end caps with extruded lettering. The final design forms part of Kristin’s degree and was shown at the BA Design Show at the London College of Communication in June 2011.
Future of 3D
Inition’s “Future of 3D” series encourages work on non-commercial projects which help to push the boundaries of current 3D creative and technology. This was the first time we had seen a project go from sketched concept, through haptic modelling to a physical 3D printed model. Organic designs are not usually immediately associated with computers but with Claytools strength in creating organic shapes and our 3D printer's ability to print them, we see a great future for this combination of technologies in product design.
The kit we used: ZPrinter 450, Phantom Omni with Claytools software
Thanks to Kristin for creating a great piece; the first thing we've 3D printed that has been created on a haptic device. Check out our Future of 3D blog at fo3d.posterous.com for our latest experiments.
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.