Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/724677
REALITY virtual Deluxe partners with GE on VR experience LOS ANGELES — GE and Deluxe VR (www.bydeluxe.com) recently partnered to illustrate how GE's various businesses cross-pollinate a vast knowledge base to develop new solutions. The interactive GE Store virtual reality experience embodies the notion that GE's sum is greater than its parts, and that compa- ny-wide collaboration benefits customers and investors alike, resulting in better products, services and outcomes. The experience lets viewers select seemingly disparate GE business units — healthcare, oil & gas, energy connection, trans- portation, digital, renewable energy, global research center, or aviation — to see the real-world ways in which they collaborate. For instance, combining healthcare with oil & gas transports users to the ocean floor to reveal how GE is using ultrasound technology to improve underwater crude oil pipelines. "Conveying how the interconnectivity of GE technologies en- courages the realization of bigger, more impactful outcomes was an ambitious, complex and somewhat abstract idea," says Andy Goldberg, chief creative officer of GE. "VR was the best way to bring it to life, and the Deluxe team have been great partners in doing so. Within this VR experience, people are actively trans- ported into different settings and can see the connections being made across our businesses." Briefed by Goldberg on the synergies and collaborations com- prising the GE Store, Deluxe VR's creative team set out to iden- tify compelling visuals and interactions that would intersect GE's divisions and drive the experience. Teams of artists researched each business unit to flesh out concepts and storylines, mod- eled the CG assets, built new 3D models based on real-world GE technologies, and modified existing high-res assets from GE to run at the necessary frame rate for VR. To achieve a high level of interactivity, Deluxe VR's technologists customized the simulation engine specifically for this experience, developed new anti-aliasing tools, and experimented with new hardware and software. Refining the interface was a key focus to ensure that viewers could intuitively navigate the virtual environment. GE is using VR to show how the company's sum is greater than its parts. NEOTOPY FOCUSES ON CINEMATIC VR WITH A TOUCH OF MAGIC Neotopy Studio is true to its mission of creating cinematic VR content with a magical touch, as seen in a recent project — a VR mini-concert that features leading French artist, Yael Naim, for Unibail-Rodamco. Shot specifically for 360/VR viewing, the concert is on a roadshow throughout Europe, with 30 people "attending" the concert every hour at a particular venue. For tour dates, see http://www.bandsintown.com/YaelNaim. Colorist Alexandre Regeffe discussed the development of the VR mini-concert and how Neotopy managed the 360/VR post production process. "is is a showcase of Yael Naim produced by Ivan Maucuit, VR project manager at Neotopy Studio, featuring two songs in 10 minutes. I was on set for the shoot with Jean Baptiste Villechaize, who worked as both DP and director." VR SHOOT "Ivan and Jean-Baptiste used four GoPro cameras on a customized rig, and we worked with both to get the camera positions and light- ing right. GoPros are a great camera for VR — they're inexpensive and make VR accessible to everyone — but to create a high-quality, professional-looking result, there's a lot of work in post production. "ere were three takes for each song, so there was a lot of data to resynchronize." POST PRODUCTION " VR is our raison d'etre, so we're fully prepared for the complex challenges of VR post. We built new pipelines and our own workflows. We did the stitching and sent the ProRes 4K files onto Assimilate's SCRATCH VR Suite. We found SCRATCH VR invaluable as all the VR color grading and finishing tools are streamlined into a single workflow. It has advanced features like masks automatically repeating on the right or left side to the equirectangular image. SCRATCH also made it easy to manage the highlights and lowlights within the material, drawing out the depth of shadows and softening the glares. " With so much material in a 360 shoot, more challenges arise. For example, contextual grading is difficult. We had to avoid seams. Numerous artifacts needed clean up. And while I was working on a powerful Mac workstation with a high-res monitor, I couldn't sufficiently view the content via a headset (poor defini- tion, but realtime), so I was continually checking the results and making adjustments. "e target device for the concerts is the Samsung Galaxy s6, plugged into the Samsung Gear VR headset." CLOUD-BASED REVIEW "I used the SCRATCH viewing tool so the client, DP and several others could view content simultaneously. at way I could make changes in realtime and run sets of reviews. I also used it to preview the color grading directly in the Samsung Gear Headset, in a stream- ing way! It's a huge time saver." Learn more about Neotopy at www.neotopy.com. Learn more about the SCRATCH VR Suite at www.assimilateinc.com. SPONSORED CONTENT ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF NEOTOPY STUDIO