Avolites wrote custom software for their D4 Elite console for TV lighting director Mike Le Fevre, who is using a D4 to light two worlds – virtual reality and actual reality - in a new BBC 3 commissioned TV series, “FightBox”.
The show will be transmitted on weekdays from 13 Oct 2003 at 19:30 on BBC 3
and weekly on Fridays on BBC 2 at 19:00 from the 14 Nov 2003
The programme, a 21st century sport and TV show for the gaming generation, mixes virtual (VR) and actual reality (AR) characters and locations in an entertaining amalgam of gladiatorial contest, digital imagination and fast-paced action.
FightBox is a collaboration between website specialists Bomb and TV production company Ricochet Digital. The TV series element is being developed in Studio 1 of the BBC Television Centre in Wood Lane, West London. However the FightBox concept spans three multimedia elements
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A website - that selects contestants for the TV show and where aspirants construct their own virtual warriors which can qualify to ‘play’ on the TV show.
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The TV show itself, where winning contestants’ warriors can become one of 6 house warriors or FightBox ‘Sentients’
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An interactive CDROM product for games consoles
The TV show is staged in an elliptical arena in front of a live audience with a full moving and generic lighting rig. Here the Sentients and Warriors remain onscreen in VR, manipulated by real people pressing buttons on a game pad.
The show’s virtual characters and their locations, and the actual characters in the studio are only ever composited and seen together on TV!
However, Le Fevre needed to light both real world set in the studio (which is also replicated in the virtual world), and the virtual set on screen, ensuring that the shadows and colours in both are matched and consistent ….. and this is where he needed the special software.
Avolites jumped at the challenge, “It’s great to be involved in something that’s truly unique and cutting-edge” says Sales Director Steve Warren.
Running this special software, Le Fevre can light virtual sets …. in the real world in real time. He uses one set of D4 faders to change and control the fixtures in the real world (studio), and a second set of faders to alter and control all aspects the VR
lighting.
The special Diamond 4 software also allows the virtual world to execute both real and virtual world lighting cues, e.g. if a creature or warrior collides with a force field, that collision triggers a cue on the D4. The control system also enables a virtual creature to be follow spot lit in the real world
Lighting in the VR world is equally as important as it is in actual reality. Each camera angle needs to inform the VR rendering engine of the perspective it’s looking at, so the VR system needs to know what each camera is seeing – a feat achieved using a BBC designed software and hardware invention called Free-D
Lighting fixtures utilised in the studio include VL5 Arcs, VL1000s and four High End Cyberlights, all supplied by Vari*Lite Europe. Miec Heggett is operating the D4 with John Bradford and Lee Allen operating the (real world) lighting rig.
All photos are © Steve
Warren
