pixomondo meets Active Crown, tens of thousands of people compete in the stadium

In the film and television production and advertising industries, how to realize large-scale scenes efficiently and at low cost has always been a problem. Pixomondo faced such a challenge when creating a commercial for Toronto FC Caledon - they needed to present a packed stadium, but actually coordinating thousands of extras was not only expensive but logistically impossible. In the end, the team combined Vicon motion capture + Active Crown + Unreal Engine + LED background wall to capture crowd movements in a controlled environment and successfully created a realistic virtual stadium, which perfectly solved this problem.

Challenge: Efficiently present the dilemma of a 10,000-seat stadium

The core requirement of the advertisement is that the athletes are playing football at an amazing speed on the illuminated court while 20,000 fans cheer for them in the stands. However, the shooting restrictions in reality forced the team to find another way. "The idea of obtaining 20,000 extras is impossible, and the cost is extremely high," co-director Matthew Manhire said frankly. Although traditional green screen shooting combined with post-production synthesis is feasible, it is often difficult to achieve natural and smooth dynamic effects, especially under high-speed lenses. Small deviations will cause blurring of the picture and increase the workload of post-production restoration.

Solution: Vicon motion capture+Active Crown+Unreal Endine+LED background wall to achieve precise dynamic capturep>

Pixomondo chooses to use Vicon motion capture, Active Crown, Unreal Engine and LED background wall technologies create a highly controllable virtual shooting environment.

During the production process of the commercial, Pixomondo used the Vicon motion capture system to drive 3D real-person scanned characters to create character animations, and then operated the instance ratio static mesh crowd simulation system developed by Pixomondo in real-time in Unreal Engine to randomly assign motion capture images to individual crowds in the venue, thereby achieving efficient and realistic simulation of crowd assets. Finally, the virtual crowd assets in Unreal Engine were projected onto the LED screen in real time, and Active Crown was used to perform high-precision position tracking of the camera. Even under high-speed shooting of 200fps, the camera movement data of each frame is ensured to be accurate. In this way, the team can capture the motion of small-scale actors in a limited space, and then passThe algorithm scales to synthesize the natural dynamics of thousands of virtual viewers.

Program advantages

Frame-level precise matching: Active Crown's high-precision tracking allows the movement of the virtual camera to be completely synchronized with the real shooting, effectively avoiding errors during post-production synthesis.Screen misalignment problem.

Efficient production process: Since most of the shots are completed in the virtual environment, the workload of post-production adjustments and repairs is greatly reduced, thus significantly shortening the production cycle.

Controllable cost: no need to organize large-scale group performances, only a small number of actors are needed to coordinate the movementsBy simply capturing, you can generate a realistic stadium effect of 10,000 people.

Result: Create a seamless and immersive experience

In the final film, the fans in the virtual stadium cheer, wave, stand and other actions are natural and smooth, and there is no sense of disobedience when switching lenses. In high-speed shooting moments, such as close-ups of goal celebrations, Active Crown's precise data capture ensures image stability and realism. This not only meets the creative needs of advertising, but also significantly improves production efficiency and provides reusable technical solutions for similar projects.

Future Outlook: New Possibilities for Virtual Production

This case of Pixomondo demonstrates the strong potential of Active Crown in virtual production, especially in projects that require large-scale dynamic scenes. This technology can greatly reduce the difficulty of real-life shooting while improving picture quality. With real-time rendering engineWith the continuous advancement of motion capture technology, in the future, the film, television, advertising and even game industries are expected to adopt similar solutions more widely to achieve a higher degree of freedom of creative expression.

With the continuous advancement of real-time rendering engines and motion capture technology, similar solutions are expected to be more widely used. This not only provides creators with greater creative freedom, allowing them to break through the limitations of traditional production and unleash their creativity, but also brings more expectations to the audience. The advancement of technology is constantly reshaping our visual experience, and Active Crown will undoubtedly become an important force in promoting this change, leading us into a new era of virtual production.