Here’s an interesting solution to adding more life into virtual production environments for LED volume/in-camera VFX.
Volumetric video pioneer Arcturus released several updates for its industry-leading HoloSuite platform, including a new beta feature developed to connect volumetric video clips and seamlessly blend them together. With this ability, content creators can populate full virtual production scenes with real people, build live-action branching narratives with no gaps and offer original experiences for the metaverse using people instead of CG avatars.
Volumetric Potential
“Volumetric video isn’t just offering content creators new ways to do old things better; with the right tools, it offers possibilities that simply weren’t there before,” said Kamal Mistry, CEO of Arcturus. “Our new tools will open up a huge range of potential uses across multiple industries, and soon we will begin to see content unlike anything that’s ever been seen.”
The HoloSuite update sees the eagerly anticipated Blend tool. With Blend, HoloSuite users can take a volumetric video clip featuring a live-action performance and connect that clip to other related clips, creating an imperceptible transition from one segment to another. Artists can also use Blend to loop the end of a clip back to its start, creating a recording of a photorealistic subject moving and interacting that continually repeats.
The possibilities range across multiple industries and platforms, but game engine users with the HoloSuite plugin will benefit immediately. Creators can now take a blended volumetric video clip and insert it into a digital environment to populate a virtual scene with live-action 3D performances without needing to create countless digidoubles, or try to force 2D video into a 3D setting.
The Blend feature will allow users to build live-action branching narratives with no perceptible change between video tracks. HoloSuite can take multiple recordings of a subject and smoothly blend them together, giving the end-user a seamless experience as they progress down multiple paths based on their choices. That will give creators a completely original way to explore new forms of digital storytelling, build AR/VR experiences, and more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkPFMjz6CCg Blend tool in action
Blend is the result of years of research and development by the award-winning Arcturus team, as well as requests from volumetric video users. Working hand-in-hand with HoloSuite users and clients, Arcturus will continue the current beta testing over the next few months, fine-tuning the Blend functionality and ensuring compatibility and stability. Once the beta period has concluded, Blend will become a standard feature. All current HoloSuite users will be able to participate in the beta.
Updates include:
4DViews Capture Import – New native file support will allow users to directly import files from 4Dviews.
Generate “Smooth Normals” – HoloSuite users can generate “smooth normals” to create better surfaces for re-lighting and allow quick lighting changes on volumetric subjects in game engines.
New Lighting Preferences – Environmental lighting can now be added directly within HoloEdit for more dynamic viewing.
Pricing/Availability
HoloSuite is available now. Annual licenses are available for commercial and private use. Special pricing for education is available as well upon request. Today’s update is available at no additional cost to current license holders.
About Arcturus
Arcturus makes the tools needed for content creators to fully harness the power of volumetric video for multiple industries. Founded in 2016 by some of the leading storytellers and innovators from transformative organizations like Pixar, Netflix, Dreamworks, Autodesk, Google, and YouTube, Arcturus was ideally suited to create “HoloSuite,” a SAAS post-production platform featuring the industry-leading tools for editing, compressing and streaming volumetric video. HoloSuite is available now and compatible with most major 3D creation tools.
As part of its efforts to bring volumetric video to a broader audience, Arcturus is currently consulting with a wide range of customers working to bring volumetric humans to the metaverse, virtual production, and more while also helping broadcast partners introduce new options to help expand live-events.
For more information, please visit Arcturus at: https://arcturus.studio/.
