The live simulation, originally conceived for a show by a prominent fashion label, was designed to be held within a circular theatre in Milan. The walls of the theatre, usually mirrored, were covered in a 50 by 6m screen, forming a 270-degree surface surrounding the audience and catwalk, onto which was projected a vast 3D video from five 20K Christie projectors driven by a CatalystPM media server and Compulite Vector Green console. The entire production was realised in wysiwyg, using the software's video manager to split the image into five portions, divided equally among the Christie projectors.
Luca Baraldo, president of Teslacoop explains, "If you normally use an image that is 1024 by 768 pixels, you can't project this onto a 50m by 6m screen, so my graphic designers made a 3D forest that was 5000 pixels long by 600 pixels high. I cut this into five equal pieces and put one piece into each of the five projectors. Inside wysiwyg you can focus the projectors to create a blending effect - the results were stunning, even in low resolution, and we now we have the video in high definition so we can make it even more spectacular."
In the original storyboard, the camera follows a sphere of light that travels through dense woodland until it reaches a large tree, at which point, fashion models appear to emerge from the forest and onto the catwalk. Although the project currently focuses on this particular backdrop, Teslacoop points out that it could potentially be adapted to encompass any scene imaginable.
"We've made it for anyone who would like to have a large 3D forest around their audience," comments Baraldo. "But for that matter they could have whatever type of real life image they want - a town, a desert or maybe an aquarium - the main thing is that we can put the audience inside a virtual 3D scene."
(Jim Evans)
