Music events and festivals are now becoming more interesting, with the power Unity Engine in real-time animation, there’s more space for creativity and imagination to add to the virtual world.
Real-time animation means that the 3D scene is being rendered in real time, all the visual effects and videos are triggered and rendered frame by frame at the time of display, just like a video game.
Developing the the virtual show includes designing a 3D stage on which VJing (video mixing) is being performed, fireworks, sparkular effects, laser, and lighting effects can be added to the scene.
The more we add to the 3D environment more immersive the show can become.
When the greenscreen chroma-keyed DJ performance is integrated into the show, the music artist can appear on the virtual stage and perform like in a real-world show!
To produce a video clip rendered in real-time we go through a journey of many steps:
DESIGNING THE 3D ENVIRONMENT
This is the most exciting and challenging part. It needs a lot of creativity, imagination and technique. Using Unity engine made it possible to integrate external video sources and apply chroma key in real time while the 3D visual effects can be triggered from a pre-programmed timeline.
Here we illustrate our view of the world, fiction, emotions, and even a message. The environment tells the story of the whole show.
VJ PERFORMANCE
VJ performance is done using a VJ software to display visuals on the virtual stage screens. Depending on the design, visuals are mapped to the right objects in the 3D environment and are displayed at the right time in sync with lighting and other visual effects.
Just like mixing videos live in a concert, using the same equipment for live production on the virtual stage makes the show more creative and exciting.
LIGHTING PERFORMANCE
Spotlights and area lights are very important in the show. They make the simulation look closer to reality, lighting is an essential part of the whole thing. Colors and light animations are effective to express the energy, speed and the atmosphere of the scene. Lighting is always taken care of along with other visuals to set the whole environment on a specific atmosphere.
TIMELINE PROGRAMMING
Visual effects like fireworks, sparks, smoke, or animations can be triggered from a timeline that contains the music track as well. This way all animations and visual effects can be synchronized with music to make it a show.
Although it’s a real-time animation process, timeline can be very helpful if we want to render 4K footages from the show. All effects can be activated at a specific time, giving more accuracy for everything to be in perfect sync with each other, and giving the render engine time to calculate the scene elements and visual effects.
RUNNING THE SHOW
The show can be rendered from many different camera angles as a video animation loop that can be repeated forever. This is very useful for streamers who want to use it as a background layer in a streaming software, key out a greenscreen feed on top of it, and go live.
If you want to have your own show customized, hit me up on Fiverr!