UnitedVisualArtists d3 Show Production Suite
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Michael S. Eddy
A d3 screenshot and actual shot of the U2 Vertigo tour. Under the direction of show director Willie Williams, UVA produced an interactive camera-based system to surreptitiously gather video loops of the audience during the show and then render a “video mosaic” processing live footage of Bono during the song “One.” d3 was used to visualize and control playback onto the hanging Barco MiSphere LED screens. Photos courtesy of UnitedVisualArtists.
Video and lighting systems are becoming more tightly integrated. Convergence is starting to come to pass, yet control and output systems are becoming increasingly complicated. You currently have one system to visualize content. You then need a media server and video system to output the content to various devices and then layer on a show control system to synchronize it and make all of these devices work together. d3 from UnitedVisualArtists, Ltd. (UVA) is a 3D visual show production suite that replaces a lot of this system.
The d3 system is a proprietary package of software and hardware available for rental or for sale from XL Video. With d3, you can use the same hardware and software system to playback the content to video, LED, and lighting devices. You can map content to a wide variety of display devices, even with different pixel density and type, all at the same time.
What It Does
“When you design with d3, you place LED output devices, lighting fixtures, and screens into a 3D environment. You can import CAD drawings of your stage, booth, or building and turn the 2D plan into a 3D environment,” says Ash Nehru, software director with UVA. “You can use d3 to preview your design in realtime with pixel-accurate representation and play content through the output devices and lighting fixtures. d3 handles all output needs, driving all displays and lights, without rendering. You can layer content — audio, video, and bitmaps — onto a beat-based timeline and then connect your output devices and playback your show.” Nehru adds that users have a host of other options, including the ability to mix output devices of differing pixel density and type; design for any arbitrary shape or placement of screen or device including curves and 3D shapes; make rapid changes to content and configuration without rendering; pre-visualize from any camera position; output four full HD feeds and DMX from one unit; slave additional boxes, as needed; and sync to SMTPE, MIDI, DMX, or any other input. It's also fully expandable and customizable.
Having one system reduces playback equipment complexity, since one unit sequences and drives everything. “What the software actually does is integrate a number of stages in project creation that generally deal with separate effects software packages and separate control devices,” says Nehru. “It integrates a visualizer, and there is also a show control aspect to it with a beat-based timeline control that plays MIDI timecode.”
The system also includes integrated video playback. Users can place video clips directly onto the timeline, “rather than using a show control system with a media server and a dedicated video playback device and then having to work to visualize the stage,” adds Nehru.
In fact, the workflow couldn't be much easier according to Nehru. “It is as simple as copying a video file into a folder, as long as it is in the right format,” he says. “We support QuickTime .MOV files. There is a proprietary hardware-based codec that we have developed to get files into the .MOV format — it's called DXV — which is designed for very high resolution content, so you can go up to resolutions of 4000×4000. It has a reasonably high data rate — slightly higher than H.264. It has a couple of useful properties such as black for prop black — you don't get black levels like this — and it also allows you to have alpha channels, something that you cannot do with H.264.”
The d3 system can also output DMX to control automated lighting in addition to video outputting. “We allow you to access DVI and DMX fixtures,” says Nehru. “We can put content onto multiple different groups of fixtures and use them as one canvas without any outboard console. Our system allows you to control large numbers of moving head lights using a targeting system. So you can target them onto a performer or create interesting patterns with very little effort.”
The d3 system is both dedicated hardware and software. “It is fundamentally a PC, but it is a PC that has been custom-built to our specifications,” says Nehru. “It is Windows-based, which we have been using for quite a while now and is very well understood. It has proven very stable. We have run a number of projects 24/7 for two to three months and have had no failures, and we did the whole U2 Vertigo tour — over 130 shows — without any failures.”
How It Came To Be
UVA got its start as a group of content creators in 2002. One of its first projects was working with Massive Attack for its 100
In 2005, Willie Williams approached UVA to work on the U2 Vertigo tour. “It was very sculptural,” Nehru says. “There were no large, square LED screens. It was all very abstract-based, with hanging Barco MiSphere curtains in different positions. We found that we were having problems making artistic decisions because we couldn't see what the content would look like, so we worked with various existing programs to see how the content would look in 3D and realized that we needed to write in realtime to show us how the content was coming across. We took a chance to create this system to visualize the content, and it just developed and developed until it ended up running the show. We found it to be easier that way.”
