blog 2021 5 min read
Corporate and xR workshop: Five ways to immerse and engage remote customers with xR
Following our corporate xR workshop, we detail the potential of extended reality in the business space and our workflows’ ability to make xR implementation simple.
With in-person gatherings halted by the coronavirus in 2020, the corporate arena is discovering how to apply extended reality (xR) and virtual production to conferences, annual meetings, product launches and other marketing activities. The same technology that has excited broadcast, concert touring, education, and esports can be implemented to create immersive environments that deliver information and messaging for corporate projects of all sizes. That’s imperative in the COVID-era when much of the world is working remotely, and travel is restricted. But xR applications will only grow when live events eventually resume.
Hosted by disguise Sales Director Phil Cooksey and Global Technical Solutions Manager Peter Kirkup, our special guest for this corporate and xR workshop was Nick Askew, Head of Corporate at disguise Rental Partner Creative Technology. Creative Technology supplies specialist technical services and equipment to events worldwide and offers xR studios at many of its international offices as a disguise rental partner.
Watch the full Corporate and xR Workshop webinar here
The disguise xR workflow any corporate project looking to harness xR to deliver more compelling and memorable corporate events. Here are five examples of what xR can do.
1. Bring branding to life
Our xR workflow allows content creators to introduce the presentation’s themes and branding into the event’s design. Chinese tech company Lenovo live streamed an international conference showcasing the company’s cutting-edge thinking and innovative practices in an xR environment in late 2020. A futuristic city builds itself on the virtual set and immerses presenters and speakers in an expansive new era of infrastructure via a curved LED video screen with set extensions.
The whole process was smooth and with low latency, which allowed the audience to experience the creative and intelligent elements of the brand’s technology in real-time and gave them a unique visual experience.
Read our Lenovo case study
2. Immerse viewers and deliver more compelling content
Augmented reality workflows used in Lenovo’s live-streamed international conference enabled the virtual production team to highlight key points within the talks. This, in turn, helped presenters deliver more compelling content and immerse viewers into the futuristic setting far beyond the physical limitations of the set.
SAP, the software corporation, are another keen advocate of the tech. Our xR workflow was employed at their virtual annual conference to free speakers from a typical stage’s confines and do things they couldn’t in real life. During the main keynote, the company’s CEO used the example of the path between ordering and receiving a car as a metaphor; with last-minute changes to the order occurring when new materials became available, or the best supplier was sourced.
In a conventional conference, the metaphor would have been illustrated by images of factories on a presentation screen. But with xR, the CEO travelled from his home to the factory and on to different suppliers in the blink of an eye. The speaker could inhabit those environments right on the virtual set as the story played out around him with interactive, immersive graphics.
Read the SAP case study
3. The illusion of lavish set pieces
The physical studio space for an xR shoot might be relatively compact, but xR can visually expand that set beyond the space’s limitations.
The futuristic cityscape created for Lenovo demonstrates how xR breaks physical boundaries. The virtual production team applied mixed reality elements within the disguise xR workflow to craft vast, dynamic backdrops for each presentation topic. The disguise workflow allowed producers to seamlessly integrate camera tracking systems and real-time content rendering from Unreal Engine to cover the real environment beyond the LED screen in real-time and implement virtual set extensions around the speaker.
Find out why now is the time for xR for your business
4. Promote creativity and design without limitation
The ability of xR to scale puts no limits on how creative teams want the corporate event experience to look. Using our visualiser, the creatives behind SAP’s event could simulate how the xR rig would work, what the camera would see and what the content would look like when the camera moved. Gaining assurances like this in pre-production gives peace of mind to teams who are pushing the envelope.
With the disguise xR workflow that confidence continues on the set. Lenovo used our rx render engine hosting platform to run uncompressed real-time content rendering smoothly and at scale. Simultaneously, our vx 4 media server powered the high-quality video output onto the LED video canvas. The result allowed speakers to see and interact with photoreal skylines, conference rooms and abstract settings.
Discover our rx media server
5. Deliver experiences for audiences on-site and online
xR doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition for corporate events. When Maserati unveiled their new supercar in late 2020, the company staged a two-day hybrid event to engage a limited on-site audience as well as viewers of the live global broadcast.
The experience blended a vast open-air stage with 630 square metres of LED panels on three different axes, where anamorphic visual effects were mapped with the help of the disguise xR workflow. The visual narrative was complemented by a live performance, light show, sound system and original soundtrack. Three of our gx 2c media servers integrated with Notch powered the whole experience as AR elements floated above the audience and the performers’ interacted with the LED video screens.
Read our Maserati case study
Delivering xR experiences with our xR workflow can boost awareness and engagement, drive demand and grow loyalty for businesses and brands of all sizes worldwide. xR enables creative and technical professionals to imagine, create and deliver spectacular live visual experiences at the highest level. And the disguise xR workflow offers creative partners the flexibility to scale and customise virtual productions for any corporate conference, product launch or branding effort.
