news 2020 5 min read

disguise brings the future of xR to London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong

disguise has launched three Extended Reality (xR) stages in its London, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong offices. The new stages provide a dedicated space for xR innovation and customer demonstrations, allowing disguise and its user community to explore and finesse xR workflows, experiment with content ideas, and offer support with remote production worldwide.

The stages are equipped with disguise’s xR solution and a proven complement of LED displays, cameras and camera tracking systems to ensure successful xR productions. For its London and LA stages, disguise has chosen long-term partner ROE Visual to deliver first-class LED panels that bring high-quality visual effects to life on large display formats, creating immersive experiences for performers on stage and audiences at home.

“It’s a pleasure to have partnered with disguise on this fantastic project. We are pleased to be at the forefront of the ever-popular technique of virtual production and it’s great to have a fully functioning stage in the UK. I’m sure disguise and their team of experts will make a huge success of this growing technology."

David Morris, Business Development Director UK and Ireland, ROE Visual

London

The London stage opened in August 2020 and marked its debut with a visit from creative studio dandelion + burdock. The space affords EMEA customers the chance to visit a permanent xR installation and gives disguise the ability to stream demos to clients around the globe.

“We felt very privileged to have been the first to come and play at the disguise London xR stage,” says Nils Porrmann, Technical Director at dandelion + burdock. “We were very cordially received, with the appropriate safety measures in place, and our support team was amazing. We used the setup to involve and condition our creative team to an ever more complex live production environment. We believe an all-team approach leads to better expectations management and smoother deliveries.”

The London stage is fitted with the following cutting-edge technology:

ROE Visual Diamond 2.6mm curved LED wall and Black Marble 4.8mm matte finish floor
Brompton Tessera SX40 LED processor and XD unit
Mo-Sys StarTracker, stYpe RedSpy and Ncam Mk2 for agnostic camera tracking systems
Blackmagic URSA camera
Barco E2 image processing system

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles xR stage opened last year and has already been hosting demos and running events, including a programme for SIGGRAPH 2019 when guests filled the space to attend talks by key industry experts. The stage has also been used to prep the setup for America’s Got Talent and by Framestore VFX studio for film production.

The LA stage is equipped with:

ROE Visual Black Pearl 2.8mm LED wall and Black Marble 4.8mm floor
Brompton Tessera SX40 and S4 LED processors and XD unit
stYpe RedSpy camera tracking
BlackTrax real-time tracking
Blackmagic URSA camera
Barco S3 image processing

Hong Kong

While still under construction, the Hong Kong stage is set to launch in Q4 2020. As a dedicated xR space in their primary APAC office, it will allow disguise’s Hong Kong team to offer unparalleled customer service and provide 24-hour support to meet increased xR global demand.

When complete, the stage will feature:

Mo-Sys StarTracker camera tracking
Blackmagic URSA camera
Panasonic UE150 PTZ camera - supporting 4K and FreeD protocols
CreateLED panels

A space for xR innovation, support and validation

With the launch of rx, RenderStream and software release 17.4 there has been an acceleration of disguise customers wanting to run Unreal Engine content on xR stages, and these spaces will be available for anyone to come in and experiment with those workflows. With work underway to deliver the Epic MegaGrant brief - closer integrating Epic and disguise’s products - these spaces will also offer essential R&D and customer feature validation services to the Product teams at disguise.

“Our stages will provide a space for xR innovation and support, opening up access to our user community to see and learn the xR workflow, try out content ideas and run customer demos. With our newly-launched 17.4 software release supporting completely uncompressed engine-agnostic rendering, we are solidifying our position in the market as a trusted partner for next-generation virtual production,” says Fernando Kufer, CEO of disguise.

disguise users worldwide have started recognising the growing demand for immersive real-time production and have started working closely with disguise to develop their xR capabilities. Darmah is disguise’s first studio partner and one of the first to adopt xR to deliver spectacular immersive productions for Latin acts Ozuna, CNCO, Manuel Turizo and Daddy Yankee.

“Recently we were able to offer our dXR stage in our Miami studio featuring the latest XR technology powered by disguise. It was another major step we’ve taken with disguise since we became the first official disguise studio worldwide back in 2006. Today our dXR stage allows us to imagine, create, and deliver visual immersive experiences to our growing list of clients. Artists are able to walk into our studio knowing that the final product will be taken care of at one place, all done in-house. disguise has always been part of our creative workflow allowing us to create visual results that are astounding and performances are unforgettable.”