While Microsoft’s mixed reality (MR) head-mounted display (HMD) HoloLens isn’t anywhere near launch for the consumer market, it seems the company is continuing to build partnerships to aid in the creation of content for the platform. Recently Microsoft has collaborated with film studio Legendary to bring the characters from the Warcraft movie to life in MR.
In a blog posting by Kudo Tsunoda, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, he talks about how entertainment brands are constantly looking for new ways to promote content, with one of the newest ways being technology such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and MR.
The companies have worked together to bring Warcaft out of the 2D screen and into the real world through HoloLens, and as the video below details, Microsoft brought the headset along to premieres of the film so that actors can be seen interacting with the full sized fictional characters such as Orgrim Doomhammer.
“Microsoft HoloLens lets us bring characters from the worlds we create into the real world,” says Emily Castel, Chief Marketing Officer at Legendary. “Our fans get to interact and have fun with our characters in a completely new way, giving them a unique experience they can share with their friends through video and social media. This is exciting for us, and for the creators we work with.”
Tsunoda goes on to detail how the process of bringing these characters to life in MR works saying: “To capture actors and real objects as holograms, we use a holographic video capture studio. We record the actors using dozens of synchronized RGB and infrared cameras on a calibrated green-screen stage. We are able to capture the motion, shape, and appearance of the performer, producing something like video but viewable from any angle, at any moment of recording.”
While it does look impressive, at the moment it’s going to be sometime before you’ll have Orgrim Doomhammer hanging out in your living room. Earlier this month Microsoft opened up the application process for developers in the US and Canada to get hold of the HoloLens, but it does still cost $3000 USD per headset. And Microsoft has yet to say when a likely public release will happen.
As ever keep reading VRFocus for all the latest news on HoloLens.
