SIT Go VP

Most Southernly Virtual Production Set on Planet Earth

Leading supplier to the Virtual Production Industry in ANZ, Intraware and local partners Protel recently installed and commissioned what is probably the closest VP setup to Antartica at Southern Institute of Technology in Invercargill on the tip of the South Island of NZ. Intraware and Protel supplied a turn Key solution including Liantronics Pilot LED display, Real Time Camera tracking hardware as well as Aximmetry real time Compositing engine and server with Bluefish SuperNova video control.

The Liantronics Pilot LED is the first LED virtual wall to be installed in an educational institute in New Zealand. Rachel Mann, Screen Arts Programme Manager at SIT School of Screen Arts, says the virtual wall is the latest technology in visual effects and filmmaking. “It’s the convergence between the filmmaking and gaming worlds”, describing it as “a very, very, high powered LED screen”, but in another league to home entertainment. “It’s not your telly at home,” she added.

“We build the 3-D [imaginary] world in a gaming engine, which is projected onto the LED virtual screen – actors can be placed on it – it composites the person into the virtual world.”

Four SIT staff received training from Intraware while they were in Invercargill. on both the support of the Pilot panels as well s the Aximmetry real time compositing software that compiles the camera tracking and 3D content to drive the LED. “We’ve had quite a bit of training,” said Ms Mann. “We tested it last week and it does more than we thought it would do – we’re pretty stoked and amazed [with its capabilities] and that was on the first day…”
The Liantronics Pilot LED will be able to be used by students in all strands of the Bachelor of Screen Arts programmes. “We are able to train students on the traditional green screen as well as the latest virtual production pipelines. It means we can do lots of collaborative projects with all our students involved,” Ms Mann added.
Wayne Morphew from Intraware said “SIT is the 2nd school in ANZ to choose Liantronic Pilot panels for their Virtual Production classes after AIE in Australia. The Pilot is best value for money when you are looking for high end Colour Gammit for Film and drama work as the Pilot has been built from the ground up for VP work as apposed to the competition that is geared towards Live Events so carries a lot of extra baggage for that and additional cost. With Liantronics Pilot we focus on high frame rates and Colour space so are close to REC 2020.