The giant panther roared into life in front of 70,000 fans
NFL team The Carolina Panthers used AR to bring to life the team’s panther mascot, turning it into a giant mixed reality creature that roared its way into the stadium and onto the jumbotron before shredding the flag of the opposition that day, the New York Jets.
The Unreal Engine-powered panther appeared live on the big screens around the stadium, and was then seen by 6m views on Twitter. It also generated the team some strong interest from sponsorships.
The AR spectacular was the work of live audience engagement specialists The Famous Group, which layered real-time 3D graphics on top of a video feed.
The live broadcast video feed came from cameras that were tracked in real-time and the real-time graphics of the Panther were added on top. The movements and view angles and properties of the real cameras and tracking information had to be matched perfectly.
A copy of the stadium within the 3D real-time environment enabled the team to create interactions between the panther and the real environment with a high degree of accuracy.
To connect the world of Unreal Engine to the realities of a live broadcast production, the Famous Group worked with Pixotope, which delivered a suite of live broadcast and show control features. These included camera connections, live feeds and calibration, tracking ingest, live controls and on-site operations.
To ensure the AR was as realistic as possible, the Famous Group utilised advanced graphics engine features such as HDRI lighting and physically based shading, high-quality animation systems and support for complex, high-resolution geometry, which Pixotope was able to provide.
The ability to record camera tracking data via Pixotope enabled The Famous Group to conduct production work, QA/Testing and validation against a live, real-world environment instead of a mockup or static scene.
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