Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524965
VIRTUAL PRODUCTION www.postmagazine.com 25 POST JULY/AUG 2024 PIXOTOPE HELPS ELEVATE INDIAN CRICKET LEAGUE MUMBAI, INDIA — The TATA IPL cricket league called on its official digital part- ner JioCinema and Pixotope (www.pixotope.com) to create an augmented re- ality and virtual studio solution. JioCinema required advanced storytelling tools to elevate their content. They sought a solution with a good chroma keyer that would seamlessly integrate with Unreal Engine, deliver reliable green-screen results and offer user-friendly software for last-minute adjustments. They also required a fast and efficient workflow, high-quality graphics and strong techni- cal support. As part of the project, JioCinema acquired Pixotope's AR/VS and XR solu- tions for their purpose-built, seven-studio facility, which includes five green- screen studios and two studios equipped with LED walls. In total, the company purchased 36 Pixotope engines, which they use for virtual production, virtual studios and set extensions. "We partnered with Pixotope solutions for the TATA IPL 2024 to enhance the viewer experience with realtime graphics and augmented reality," ex- plains Viacom18 Sports' head of content, production and digital, Siddharth Sharma. "Pixotope is an industry leader with their chroma keyer, easy to use UI, seamless integration with Unreal Engine, flexibility and unparalleled support. Pixotope truly stood out for its seamless integration with live sports streaming and played a part in delivering a uniquely immersive viewer experience during this season. Pixotope enabled us to deliver a one-of-a-kind lean-in experience to viewers for TATA IPL 2024 and we will be partnering with them for an up- coming major global sporting production." MIAMI UNIVERSITY TEACHING STAGE PRECISION SOFTWARE OXFORD, OH — Miami University, the liberal arts college and public research institution, recently expanded its facilities. The McVey Data Science Building opened in March 2024 and houses The Department of Emerging Technology in Business & Design (ETBD). An Immersive and Reactive Lab and XR Stage is one of the facilities within the new building, which is home to a 50- by 70-foot stage and a 44- by 16-foot ROE LED wall. Stage Precision software is helping make the lab a hub for exploring the boundaries of virtual production (VP) and extended reality (XR) experiences. "We have around 70 students enrolled on courses here for VP and XR," explains Benjamin Nicholson, assistant teaching professor and Immersive and Reactive Lab and XR stage director at Miami University. "The groups are learn- ing everything from motion design and creating creative visuals for live music. They utilize immersive and reactive tools such as Notch, TouchDesigner and Unreal Engine to make virtual production stages. This is also where they are learning how to use SP from Stage Precision." Nicholson discovered Stage Precision's software during previous work on live events projects. "In the context of the lab, SP allows us to take the control and management out of several individual native softwares and hardwares, and put them all into a single interface that can be used for calibration and control." The environment at the Immersive and Reactive Lab includes a ROE LED wall, Disguise media servers, nDisplay workflows, and pipelines for two cam- eras. The main camera is a Red Komodo with access to six Zeiss prime lenses and a Canon zoom lens. "The most pivotal thing about SP is the lens-calibration features," he ex- plains. "We built lens profiles in SP, which take the data input from RedSpy for optical tracking." Camera two is another example of the ease of integration of different sys- tems into SP. "Camera two is an interesting use case of Mars tracking, so a completely different tracking system," Nicholson notes. "Thanks to the agnostic nature of Stage Precision, we can integrate both cameras one and two, two very sepa- rate and different tracking inputs, into our SP workflow." Currently, students at the lab are experimenting with a TouchDesigner VP work- flow, using SP as the hub for feeding lens and tracking data into the workflow. "At the end of the semester, the students will do a VP demo using this set- up," says Nicholson. "My Capstone Classes are already using Stage Precision on real-life projects with actual clients." As one of the first VP and XR university facilities to integrate SP into the heart of their curriculum, Nicholson believes that learning these skills will bene- fit students after graduation and throughout their careers. "SP has removed the need for technical calibration of a single source and allows students to learn the process outside of a native software package, making it a helpful foundational knowledge base that teaches skills that are transferrable across different software and technologies."