BCA Show Preview - 42

42

SUNTEC SINGAPORE

A part of

SHOW PREVIEW | 26-28 June 2018

MARINA BAY SANDS * SUNTEC SINGAPORE

Real-Time Photorealistic
Augmented Reality
Miguel Churraca, Brainstorm's Marketing & Communications Director, discusses real-time virtual
set production and how the company addresses the challenges associated with the technology...

W

hat would you think if you were able
to create, in real-time, photorealistic
scenes adding green screen shots of talents
and augmented reality graphics, then mix them
all together so seamlessly that the audience
could not tell which are real and which are not?

Hyper Realistic Rendering
Technology
You will probably think that people are
already used to visual effects, and that
achieving such results is a common task in
today's filmmaking. However, for live, on-air
broadcast operation, photorealism is one of
the toughest challenges - if we are thinking
on real-time virtual set production - because
what really makes the difference for the
viewers is to be unable to tell whether the
images they are watching are real videos or
digital renders.
Creating such realism requires the
combination of a number of technologies,
hardware and software. Camera tracking is
almost mandatory to perfectly match the
camera movements of the scene and the
characters, which allows shooting the talent
as required. But also, the background scenes
must have an extremely high render quality,
which can only be achieved using hyper
realistic rendering technology and carefully
designed sets to create photorealistic images.
Thanks to its Combined Render Engine,
InfinitySet can combine the Epic Games'
Unreal Engine with Brainstorm's own eStudio
render engine, resulting in a perfect solution to
create state-of-the-art hyper realistic scenes,
which can also integrate essential elements for
broadcast operation, such as 3D data-driven
motion graphics, charts and many other,

Aston graphics can integrate with InfinitySet

providing results which are indistinguishable
to real footage, no matter if we are working in
HD, 4K or even higher resolutions.

Enhanced Control with InfinitySet
Amazingly enough, InfinitySet not only
matches the tracking data of any number
of cameras in the scene with the real-time
rendered Unreal background, but also
controls the parameters of the real lights
or the Chroma Keyer as the set conditions
require such changes. For instance, if the
talent is walking around the green screen
and the light conditions change in the virtual
set, InfinitySet can tell the real lights on the
green studio to change accordingly, and also
remotely alter the Chroma Keyer settings to
maintain the best quality, even when using
external hardware. Because of this, InfinitySet
can simulate different conditions of the day,
different lights, different ambiences, using
a single scenario, in real-time and with
full control, and even adding volumetric
illumination.

Another interesting feature is InfinitySet's
ability to cast virtual shadows over the
real chroma keyed shadows. These virtual
shadows depend on the virtual scene
illumination and can affect the virtual
elements. On top of that, InfinitySet is also
capable of creating accurate selective
defocus and bokeh, matching the depth of
field of the lenses on a given scene. All of
the above adds up to the advanced features
which make InfinitySet the most advanced
virtual set and Augmented Reality solution:
TrackFree™, TeleTransporter, 3D Presenter or
VideoGate, to name just a few.

Effortless Integration
Once the scene is prepared, it is also
important to understand that broadcast
graphics workflows have specific requirements
that are far beyond from what a game engine
can do, often requiring external database
connections, statistics, tickers, social media
or lower-thirds; such a variety of graphics that
are alien to the game engine framework but
essential for broadcast operation.

InfinitySet can effortlessly integrate Aston
graphics as Augmented Reality objects
within the scene, with a render quality
that matches that of the Unreal Engine by
using Brainstorm's PBR (Physically Based
Rendering) capabilities. This allows for
adding advanced audio-visual aids such
as in-context typography, motion graphics,
statistics, charts and many more, all
perfectly integrated in the composition, both
in animation, tracking, perspective matching
and, of course, image quality.
InfinitySet can also include 2D and 3D
graphics based on social media feeds and
data retrieved from the Internet, thanks to
OnMedia, Brainstorm's end-to-end solution
for managing virtual and augmented reality
3D graphics based on social media feeds.
Such an amount of information is easy
to manage with Brainstorm's solutions,
and, what is more important, seamlessly
integrated and with comparable rendering
quality, into the photorealistic scene created
by InfinitySet with the Combined Render
Engine.
With all the above, InfinitySet's advanced
virtual technology represents a real costsaving solution, providing new possibilities
for production houses and broadcasters for
creating realistic scenes and environments,
no matter if we are talking about sitcoms,
news, sports or entertainment shows. Also,
this approach avoids one of the common
complaints broadcasters have when using
virtual technology; that is the quality of the
virtual sets, so it makes this technology
a real alternative to remote live outdoor
shooting or physical set construction.
www.brainstorm3d.com

InfinitySet features a Combined Render Engine

State-of-the-art hyper realistic scenes are created
http://www.brainstorm3d.com/products/aston/ http://www.brainstorm3d.com/products/aston/ http://www.brainstorm3d.com http://www.brainstorm3d.com/products/infinityset/ https://vimeo.com/266095029
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