Innovative holographic agency activ8-3D are hailing their recent project, ‘Touching Space’ at Piccadilly’s Royal Academy of Arts a major success after creating the world’s largest 3D-holopod wowing audiences throughout the capital.

Centred around the core idea of duality, ‘Touching Space’ began with a series of exploratory workshops with science and arts students at Ashmole School in London and St Xavier’s school in Mumbai, to create something truly spectacular.

Located on the ground floor of the exhibition, ‘Touching Space’ startled crowds from October 31 until January 19 as part of a brand new feature to the Academy, known as GSK Contemporary season.

Working in collaboration with Complicite, activ8-3D’s latest project saw both sets of students were given the extremely difficult task of transforming everyday problems including multidimensionality and the irrationality of the square root of two into a selection of movements and text propositions, considering both creative and virtual communication.

Once these movements had been meticulously put together into a performance worthy of vast audiences, the students were asked to leave space for half of the performance to be created on the other side of the world by another group of students.

Simon Humphrey’s, activ8-3D’s executive director said, “We were thrilled by the success of this project and we were all encouraged at how the children responded to the 3D-holopod. This attempt to touch space led to unknown interactions with imagined collaborators and then enabled the discovery of strategic collisions. Based on the success of this project, we are extremely keen to collaborate again with the Royal Academy of Arts sometime in the not so distant future.”

Simon Humphreys, activ8-3D’s executive director said, “This really is an exciting development in holographic display, and offers our clients a brand new 3D-system that looks set to revolutionise the live event marketplace. The 3D-interactive system is targeted at events, shows, exhibitions as well as the film and computer games industries. The 3D-interactive system operates in real time, and in 360 degrees to capture every nuance of body movement.”

The system is set to pave the way at live events, due to the sheer mileage of what the system has to offer to clients. The revolution in 3D holographic display means that at sporting events, live virtual mascots could be projected onto large screens and could interact with the crowd, or virtual presenters could entertain the audience at conferences or perhaps a company gala dinner. The virtual characters could even be used to meet and greet your guests.

David Woodcock from Animotion Live, added, “The system has already been successfully used at an event at the IMAX cinema in central London with Apple Macintosh co-founder Steve Wozniak, who was interviewed by a virtual humanoid! We have very high hopes for our cooperation with activ8-3D and the JV of the 3D Animotion Live system. The technology really is cutting-edge and companies seeking to give their clients the wow factor can now stop searching - the wow factor is the here and it’s live”

Video, film production and computer games can also utilise Animotion Live, down to the fact that because there is no time lag and all of the motion elements are captured in real-time, the post-production pipeline, which was traditionally a very expensive and time-consuming process - is virtually eliminated.

Based on an actor wearing fibre optic sensing devices that capture highly accurate data on full body and head movements, the motion capture system uniquely incorporates data gloves, giving seamless, real time data transfer of intricate hand movements with stunningly integrated effect.

Facial and voice capture is achieved using phonetic driven real time voice capture. This eliminates lip-sync issues and provides full facial expressions and movement, making the holographic display opportunities endless.

Paul Andrews, creative director at activ8-3D, said, “Animotion Live uses the very latest in 3D animation software to produce stunning results, including real time lighting and shadow dynamics. The system also works with all the leading 3D applications, so it is possible to import existing 3D animations. A portfolio of stock characters are available, or bespoke characters can be specifically designed by the in-house team, ideal if you have ideas in mind, but require something a little different for an industry event or company meeting.”

Animotion’s David Woodcock added, “The product has been in development for over a year and the results we are achieving are exceptional. Although motion capture has been around for a while, we have really pushed the boundaries in terms of making all the elements work seamlessly together in real time.

“We have produced a robust, durable accurate and reliable system that provides a complete solution for the live events production world. This new technology has a real wow factor and certainly creates a buzz around events. Audiences are stunned, as they initially find it difficult to comprehend a virtual character interacting with them.

“With event budgets being made to work harder than ever, Animotion Live offers an alternative to hiring an expensive celebrity to host an event. A virtual host can offer a more cost effective option, whilst adding significantly to the dramatic impact.”