AR Studio - FIFA World Cup Russia 2018

TV Globo deployed a studio in Red Square, Russia, during the 2018 World Cup. There, we implemented a virtual extension to expand the studio. Two large monitors were placed on the side walls being fed with videos of cameras looking at the Red Square. The final effect is similar to a studio with glass walls.

In addition, we developed a system for displaying animated virtual graphics. More specifically, human avatars for Brazilian players. We built all the avatars using the well known process called photogrammetry. First, we take about 20 photos of each player in a structured camera rig developed by our team. These photos were processed and used to build the 3D geometry of each player  as well as their textures. An additional effort was employed to achieve suitable shading. This was an important step because of the sub-surface scattering effect of human skin.

In order to have better integration between virtual graphics and real studio, we captured ambient lighting using a Spheron camera and used with the physically based renderer of Unity3D  game engine.