RYOT, Magic Leap, and Sundance selection “A Jester’s Tale”

Case Studies
March 1, 2019

RYOT and film festival favorite, creator Asad Malik, were intending to produce the first Magic Leap narrative project to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. However, they encountered some quality problems in post production with their previous volumetric captures. Magic Leap contacted Arcturus to see if the volumetric video could be fixed in time to submit to Sundance. RYOT and Magic Leap felt they were trapped having to fix what they had because they feared a new capture and post processing effort would not be completed in time. With Arcturus’ team and time-saving volumetric video post-production tools, they were able to re-capture, edit, and deliver in time to be accepted into the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. 

Challenge

  • Re-capturing and post production was necessary: Arcturus determined that trying to fix the captures would be more work than recapturing, and recommended Metastage (Microsoft capture technology) for the volumetric capture. 

  • Magic Leap players for volumetric video don’t exist for Metastage captures. Microsoft would not be able to develop Magic Leap plug-in in time. 

  • Volumetric Video needs tedious cleanup. With a highly compressed timeframe, Malik needed a studio/tool that can quickly process and prepare the Metastage footage within a two week time frame instead of 6-8 weeks it would take manually.   

Solution

Arcturus’ expert engineering team and its HoloSuite technology offered the ideal solution to  RYOT’s and Malik’s challenges. 

  • Expert engineers. Arcturus’ expert team of programmers built the software for a Magic Leap player to show the Metastage files.  

  • Automated digital cleanup tools. Holosuite enabled an animator to make a modification to a small section of the character in one frame and for the change to propagate throughout all relevant frames, turning weeks of manual re-animation work into only a few days.

  • Compression. Arcturus’ open standard allows significant reduction in size of the volumetric video while retaining visual quality, thereby enabling the volumetric video to fit on a mobile device like the Magic Leap headset. 

Results

  • Magic Leap player for Metastage files was developed in 10 days. Arcturus used this project to develop its Magic Leap plug-in to Unity and now any future volumetric capture with Microsoft or similar technology can easily be ported to Magic Leap. 

  • Prototype was submitted on time and accepted into Sundance 2019. A Jester’s Tale will be the first 3rd party Magic Leap experience featured at New Frontiers. 

  • Additional creative augmentations became possible with extra time. The fast turnaround allowed the director to forgo his concerns regarding playback and editing and add additional creative elements for Arcturus to complete.    

Media