TechWatch - Adding New Dimensions to the Interactive Experience

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  • Sometimes new technologies lead to new kinds of creative content and experiences. Sometimes it’s the other way round. With its headquarters in Belfast, and a team distributed around the world, inlifesize is a startup that is innovating with creative media. The company has expertise from world-leading production houses and is applying it to emerging technologies, to see how far they can push the interactive experience.

    inlifesize has built a pipeline of productions covering a broad range of formats and styles. The first big release was Fairy Magic, an app that exploits some of the untapped potential of our mobile devices. Fairy Magic augments a world of vivid, 3D fairy characters over the real world as seen through the device’s camera. It demonstrates how high quality 3D animation need no longer be restricted to powerful platforms like games consoles and cinema.

    For the INVENT 2014 competition, inlifesize is showing off its digital comic creation, Deep Paper. Working with acclaimed artists and writers, the team has been converting a new comic series, 13 Coins, for digital publication, so it can be viewed on tablets and smartphones. Perhaps the biggest change in the digital version is that inlifesize reproduces the cover images in 3D so the viewer can move around the image and discover new narrative elements from different perspectives. But this only hints at Deep Paper’s potential. Whereas the leading digital comic platforms only offer simple interactive functions such as sound effects and very limited animation, Deep Paper has been built from scratch on a platform normally used for building 3D games. This allows the team to rebuild the comic world and do as much with the characters and environments as would be possible in a modern game.

    inlifesize was born of a passion for invention and exploring new ground. CEO and co-founder Greg Maguire described the thrill and challenge he experienced working in computer animation when it was a new industry. Every project required invention and experimentation. Greg said, “We had invention in our DNA. Because nobody had done this before, it was your job to figure it all out”. That led to playing a key role in the animation behind several blockbuster titles, including Avatar, Harry Potter, Terminator and Happy Feet.

    In recent years, as the animation and visual effects industries have matured, Greg and some of his colleagues have been seeking new ways to be innovative and make things that people have never seen before. Following the success of the iPhone, anyone could now be carrying a powerful computer in their pocket. The inlifesize team saw an opportunity to create new mobile experiences for people, away from the sofa or cinema seat, out in the world around them.

    Beyond the augmented children’s reality of Fairy Magic, and the dark, adult comic world of Deep Paper, the company has various projects in development across other experimental formats. Virtual reality is increasingly in focus for inlifesize. After the short life and death of VR in the nineties, a revival seems to be emerging with the development of new devices and computing power. The Oculus Rift, for example, illustrates the current demand for VR. Whether in virtual, augmented, comic, or any other creative environment, inlifesize is bringing world-class experience in 3D productions to the edges of what’s currently possible.

    - See more at: NISP Connect

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