Role: Researcher and Holosys Operator

Creative Director: Dan Shorten, Guildhall Production Studios

Location: Target 3D, Aldgate, London

Medium: Volumetric Capture for Costume and Dance

Software: Holosys, 4DFX, ToouchDesigner and After Effects

I had the wonderful opportunity to work alongside Target 3D and Guildhall Production Studios, to explore the realm of volumetric capture and it’s possible advantages and potential problems. Supporting dance and costume companies, BirdGangLtd and Angels Costume, we surveyed the niches of such emerging technologies and how it can be utilised in their individual art forms. Understanding how well the system is at registering degrees of proximity, as well as particular patterns and textures which may not capture well were just some for the many experiments undertaken in this innovative opportunity. It was thrilling to be able to share the observations from these experiments with the team and share knowledge about each others disciplines.

In addition to participating in this research project, I also gained experience operating the motion capture system, ingesting the capture data and using 4D Views post-production software to clean up the captures and experiment with ways to take these assets further. One way I did this can be seen above, by converting the raw captures into alembic files, I was able to represent the dance routines in an instancing system using TouchDesigner to create custom point clouds and UV mapping.