Exclusive Demos Held at Departure Lounge’s New Virtual Production Studio; Additional Demos with Dell (Booth# 527) and HP (Booth# 1011), Featuring Virtual Reality and UE Environments

LOS ANGELES – August 2, 2021 – During SIGGRAPH 2022, Arcturus, a pioneer in the field of volumetric video, is teaming up with some of the biggest names in virtual production to give showgoers a sneak peek at the future of digital environments for film and episodics. Utilizing volumetric video, virtual production studios can now populate entire digital scenes with three-dimensional, live action performances that can be edited to fit. Those characters will then appear on LED walls to ensure more realistic background characters, while also offering faster turnaround.

“The demand for virtual production is so high that it has begun to change the way filmmakers and content creators approach visual effects,” said Kamal Mistry, Arcturus CEO. “By adding volumetric video tools into that mix, it makes virtual production more realistic, while also giving creators new options for storytellers.”

Utilizing a game engine, virtual production creators can generate a full, photorealistic three-dimensional digital scene, depicting anything from a modern city street to an alien world. Rather than painstakingly designing digital background characters by hand or relying on 2D recordings, creators can instead capture a live-action performer in a volumetric stage to generate a 3D model of them, viewable from any angle. Artists and filmmakers can then upload that asset into Arcturus’ HoloSuite volumetric video toolset, where they can edit everything from its movement to head positioning.

With the volumetric character ready, it can be uploaded directly into a game engine and placed into a 3D virtual environment. From there, the asset can move through a set pattern, or stand in a group. The results are a living, populated scene with characters that avoid the pitfalls of CG character design, including the uncanny valley. The process is also significantly faster than with traditional CG character creation, which means less resources spent in both time and money. Volumetric characters are compatible with most game engines as well, including both UE4 and UE5.

Arcturus will have three separate presentations at SIGGRAPH, each showing a different side of volumetric video’s benefits to virtual production.

• Departure Lounge – Partnering with Vancouver’s newest and most advanced virtual production stage, Arcturus will team up with Departure Lounge (DLXR) to give select showgoers a private tour of a virtual stage featuring a 20 foot LED wall running a virtual environment. This environment has been created for the presentation, complete with volumetric humans, courtesy of Arcturus and DLXR.
• Dell – On the SIGGRAPH show floor, the Dell Booth (#527) will play host to a unique Arcturus demo focused on spatial computing, and highlighting how HoloSuite can be used to edit and deliver volumetric video, including to streaming platforms. A Looking Glass display will offer attendees a peek at how volumetric video can be used across multiple industries, from e-commerce to entertainment and more.
• HP – At the HP Booth (#1011), attendees will be able to experience a full, 3D virtual production environment in VR. Using HP’s Reverb VR headset, showgoers can explore a fully-realized digital environment running in Unreal Engine, populated by volumetric characters.

Along with the focus on volumetric video for virtual production, Arcturus is also planning a major announcement regarding the future of its industry-leading HoloSuite tools. All will be revealed at SIGGRAPH, and key Arcturus team members will be in attendance to answer questions.

To book an appointment to tour the new Departure Lounge virtual production studio and see an original scene – complete with volumetric humans – contact us now. Appointments to see the demos at both the HP and Dell booths are available as well.

About Arcturus Arcturus is the global leader in authoring, editing, and distributing volumetric videos. Founded in 2016 by innovators with deep backgrounds in storytelling and technology from Pixar, Dreamworks, Autodesk, Google and YouTube, Arcturus was ideally suited to create “HoloSuite,” a SAAS post-production platform, offering tools for editing and distributing volumetric video. HoloSuite consists of “HoloEdit,” an optimized pipeline for the editing and compression of volumetric video, and “HoloStream,” an adaptive streaming solution that streams polygons directly to the viewer.

Arcturus also helps others navigate the volumetric video ecosystem. Consulting work includes Hulu’s Emmy nominated “Light as a Feather” Magic Leap activation at VidCon, and Madonna’s volumetric holograms at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards, the first ever live broadcast of a volumetric performance and the winner of the Advanced Imaging Society Lumiere award.