Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1151096
AR/VR www.postmagazine.com 31 POST JULY/AUG 2019 VR enthusiast and co-founder of Rshi (www.rshi.net), Alexandre Regeffe, has wrapped up the post-production of two cinematic VR episodes for the "700 SHARKS" documentary series, which explore the hunting and behavior patterns of 700 sharks off the Fakarava Atoll in French Polynesia: Episode 1, The Fakarava Mystery and Episode 2, Into the Dark. View each two-minute episode "live" via your ARTE 360/VR App (www.arte.tv) and 360 head-set. Dive into the world of "700 SHARKS" for an immersive jolt of thrills and chills ...but in the safety of your VR/360 headset! SHARKS SHARKS The Shoot Main DP: Frederic Gourdet, VR specialist at Neotopy (www.neotopy.com), shot all the ground and boat scenes, and supervised the aerial and underwater shoots. Directors: Gourdet as co-director with Manuel Lefevre, a diver and documentarist. Cameras: 1) Z CAM S1 Pro VR/360 camera for ground and boat shots for sharp images in 6K equirectangular; 2) Kolor Abyss Rig with six GoPro Hero 3 / Hero 3+ cameras with UW housing, specifically designed for 360 underwater videos; 3) Back-to-back GoPro rig with modified lenses for aerials. The Stitching "We had to stitch footage from two, four and six-camera rigs and used Mistika VR for its optical flow technology. The sources were all in h.264, which is difficult for the color grading and finishing stages. We rendered the stitches in DPX to create a 'master source', and also in ProRes as a compromise between quality and weight." The Post Production Rshi" uses a variety of tools in its end-to-end VR workflow with Assimilate's SCRATCH VR (www.assimilateinc.com) its tool of choice for color grading, finishing, and mastering. "SCRATCH VR is the cinematic VR toolbox for me because it combines VR-specific features with traditional digital-cinema functions," said Regeffe. "We could not have done this job on time without the SCRATCH VR capabilities." "The underwater night scenes shot with the GoPro rig were the main challenge. Upon seeing the source material we knew a lot of post-production was required to get a high-quality result. We did a lot of tests with a denoiser in SCRATCH VR to finally obtain stunning images, keep sharp details in shadows, and suppress a lot of noise. We intensively used the masking tools because of the numerous layers, as we were dealing with the banding of h.264 files and all the noise." "The big advantages for me are viewing color grading results in real-time in the VR headset and the contextual masks…when you draw a mask on a layer, you want it to be seamless. In SCRATCH VR it's easy: one click on the repeater and the mask is automatically repeated and the back-seam is clean!" "There's a significant challenge of mastering deliverables for all the various browser formats and headsets. The problem in Cinematic VR is the color space…no broadcast specifications like in TV or digital cinema. SCRATCH VR was very practical for mastering, rendering several outputs with different LUTs at the same time." SPONSORED CONTENT erative content capacity, to render the AR content for the several artists performing, as well as to add spectacular elements. The Notch/Disguise combina- tion was essential for the success of the PSL opening ceremony due to the adaptability, flexibility and realtime workflow capabilities. This particular project presented a variety of challenges. All those involved had a little over a month to achieve something never done before. The main act dropped out, leaving the team to recon- figure the content, and there was a short window of time to calibrate the arena. With such a short turnaround for the entire proj- ect, Scott Millar at Bild Studios chose Notch/Disguise because of the proven compatibility and solid combi- nation. He knew it would deliver on time. To over- come the artist issue, a virtual DJ was flown out for the opening ceremony last minute. The user friendly features of the Disguise server meant the DJ content was immediately integrated with the compiled show. Having only an hour and a half to calibrate every- thing for the cameras prior to the show was made easy thanks to the Disguise server, which managed all the input from each camera. Stype was the part- ner in camera tracking and provided custom tracking heads and third-party software to allow accurate tracking of the project for all six camera involved. They were able to pull off all tracking on time, with an 80 percent increase in the clarity and quality. The Disguise/Notch combination gave the team the tools to do all the content for the LED screens. For the overlay, there was one workflow for everything, versus different teams for each part of the AR process. The PSL opening ceremony featured a disco scene, flying F16 jets, a 30-meter trophy, a robot that landed on stage, and more. The end result was a 45-minute live show with 12 different AR scenes achieved using Disguise, Notch, and Stype technol- ogy, combining AR and VR with live broadcast to over 50 million people around the globe. This accomplished the longest ever duration of an AR centred broadcast. Disguise previewed its xR technology at NAB 2019. Disguise's xR offers an augmented-reality workflow.