4 Use Cases for Volumetric Capture

Volumetric capture is revolutionizing content creation, offering developers the ability to bring real human performance, with all its texture, depth, and nuances, into 3D and 2D worlds.

Below we’ll explore some recent work that highlights how volcap is impacting four distinct industries.

Virtual Production for Film & TV

TV shows like Ted Lasso and Ahsoka have integrated our holographic assets into 2D scenes to enhance the realism of stadium crowds, and, in the case of Ahsoka, allow a character who appears as a hologram in the show – per the Star Wars cannon – to be placed into a scene that was already shot.

The VFX team at Barnstorm VFX were nominated for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode for the crowd scenes they built for Ted Lasso Season 2, using Metastage assets.

ahsoka-hologram

ILM’s VFX team had tremendous flexibility in post production to choose how to integrate the holographic performance without needing to reshoot 2D scenes with key talent.

Sports & Fitness

Volumetric capture is also an intuitive tool for sports and fitness applications.

Take a peek at our recent work in sports entertainment, marketing, and training:

An augmented reality experience with several yoga instructors as volumetric captures performing a pose while wearing virtual reality headsets.

Alo Moves XR was designed with advanced room mapping, allowing students of yoga and pilates to interact with photorealistic 3D instructors against a calming backdrop, while maintaining spatial awareness of their real surroundings.

AR phone experience showcasing US Olympic Athletes as Volcap assets.

By scanning QR codes in select Xfinity stores, remote viewers of the 2024 Paris Games were able to witness Noah Lyles’ famous victory dance, Jewell Lloyds’ high-speed dribble, Victor Montalvo’s power spin, and the agility of Paralympic stars Trevon Jenifer and Sarah Adam, among others.

Volumetric capture’s optimization for human movement, including and especially dynamic and athletic movement, makes it an ideal tool for creators in sports.

Fashion

For an industry so deeply connected with texture and the human form, volumetric capture can be highly impactful.

Popstar Abel Tesfaye AKA The Weeknd riding a motorcycle towards the camera.

In the SSENSE interview, The Weeknd delves into a digital exploration of Self, examining the virtual and real-world personas he’s crafted over his career against the backdrop of his holographic self, captured at Metastage.

In years past, our collaborators have also leveraged volcap for location-based fashion experiences. For NYFW 2022, LA-based designer Maisie Wilen (Euphoria; Yeezy’s) presented a holographic fashion show featuring seven-foot-tall models in her retro-futuristic collection inspired by Mattel’s “Monster High” characters. The collection was also made available for immersive viewing on Yahoo’s AR-enabled shoppable  site

Whether it’s enabling interactive e-commerce, or simply offering innovative ways to visualize, design, and showcase clothing, volumetric capture is also an intuitive tool for fashion creatives.

Human-Centric Training & Simulation

Development teams are increasingly leaning on volumetric capture to build lifelike training environments and address the deficit of high-stakes yet sustainable training scenarios. Volumetric assets hold significant potential in improving retention and skill mastery for medical students and even law enforcement.

In the medical sphere, our ongoing work includes GigXR’s Holopatient, which provides medical students with realistic patient scenarios that enhance diagnostic skills and provider-patient interaction, and Iris’ upcoming immersive training platform, where medical device companies can deliver collaborative training to entire OR teams, synchronously, in AR.

Volumetric capture is becoming a highly versatile tool within multiple sectors, enriching user experiences and offering an efficient alternative to uncanny 3D avatars.

If you’re interested in exploring how volumetric capture can elevate your next project, send us a message at team@metastage.com!