The OASIS project is a co-operation between DAE Research, VRT, Sputnik, Uncanny and The Pack. Within this project we follow up and experiment with innovative technologies that will help innovate the film and VFX production pipelines.
This includes technologies like motion capture, virtual production, photogrammetry, and a whole host of AI tools. DAE Research’s part in this project is as technology expert, keeping track of these newest innovations, communicating them to the project partners, and giving advice on the different experiments and use cases developed within this project.
These technologies are continually tested in practical tests and workshops, aiming to go beyond the theoretical abilities, and getting to know the exact benefits and flaws of each of these tools, and testing their suitability for use in actual productions.
As part of the OASIS project, each of the project partners also works to develop a creative space. Due to the rapid nature of these technologies, the nature of these spaces has changed during the duration of the project. For DAE, the original intention was a Chromakey/Greenscreen real-time studio. During the duration of the project, this has shifted to a full LED-screen virtual production studio, which will be built in the summer of 2024.
Aside from building up knowledge for the project partners themselves, the goal is also to dissiminate this knowledge more broadly, to help others in this industry innovate and take advantage of tools that may significantly decrease time spent, and enable entirely new use cases.
A trend throughout the project has been the continued merging of the game and VFX industries. Where in the past, each used very different technology and pipelines, these are growing increasingly similar, with the prevolence of real-time render engines like Unreal Engine finding their use in Virtual Production for instance. This also enables cross-media projects, allowing assets created for movies filmed in Unreal to be quickly converted to a game, or vice versa.