Comprehensive facility delivers benefits across the university
CJP Broadcast Service Solutions, systems integration, production and content digitisation specialist, has delivered a complete virtual studio with motion capture facilities for the University of Sunderland. The new facility allows studios the opportunity to realise projects across the whole spectrum of creativity.
For virtual production, the complex has an impressively large 10m x 3.5m LED volume, with 1.9mm INFiLED panels and Brompton processing. Camera tracking is by Mo-Sys StarTracker, with the Mo-Sys VP Pro XR providing access to the Unreal Engine to generate photorealistic environments, as well as precision camera tracking to combine live and virtual elements. The VP Pro XR software includes the ability to focus pull between real and virtual elements, with the Red Komodo cameras fitted with Preston focus pull hardware.
CJP is the UK distributor for Xsens 3D full body motion capture technology, and this is also available in the studio. It also incorporates Faceware facial tracking software for a complete solution for performance capture, allowing students to create any character their imagination can conceive, while grounding them in naturalistic movement and expressions.
“This is a remarkable resource for our film and television students,” said Professor Arabella Plouviez, Academic Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries at the University of Sunderland, “but what really interests me is the opportunities to involve students from across the faculty. It can involve writers, musicians, performers; it can involve animators or fashion students; it may bring in colleagues in business law or tourism. The potential is here for a whole lot of students to work together and create.”
The virtual reality and motion capture are part of a two studio complex, fitted out by CJP. Capabilities include full HD live production and a green screen stage, as well as outside broadcast facilities. “We now have the sort of technology that our students will find when they graduate,” said Professor Plouviez. “The technology is here to support their creative impulse, whatever that creativity is and wherever their experiences take them.”
Christopher Phillips, managing director of CJP Broadcast Service Solutions, added “The University of Sunderland set out to be leaders in their field, giving their students all the tools they need. We were able to support them by delivering complex systems with cutting edge technologies and installing them during university vacations to minimise disruption. This is a remarkable installation – a real showcase for what can be achieved to provide a fully integrated production environment.”
Watch the interview with the Dean of Faculty, Arabella Plouviez, being interviewed at the University of Sunderland’s media hub here:
