Darkwind Media Blog

Those that have followed the blog before will remember Virtual Theater. This is a grant project at RIT which is trying to create a system for theatrical performances that happen completely within a virtual performance space. The actors control virtual characters, performing on a virtual stage, in front of an audience that is watching from anywhere in the world through their computers.

Tomorrow, Virtual Theater’s Vaudeville performance will start rehearsals. This is a brand new show, and the first to be put on within the new Luster framework. Tomorrow we start hooking all of the motion capture systems up to the Luster clients and running through the script.

I haven’t gone into a lot of detail before, but I want to tell you that Virtual Theater actually demands a quite complicated network of systems. RIT currently has access to two motion capture systems, both located in separate buildings on campus. These systems must send their motion capture data in real-time to a server running AutoDesk’s MotionBuilder software. We have created a plugin for MotionBuilder which immediately sends out the real-time motion data to our client systems. Running along-side the motion capture server is the main Virtual Theater server. While the motion capture server sends out the real-time motion data, the general Virtual Theater server is responsible for funneling all other performance events to the clients (most of whom are audience members). Outside of the motion capture systems there are two other important tools for controlling the performance. The first is the Stage Manager. This system allows the director of the show to trigger predefined events (sounds, set changes, lighting events, curtain up and down, etc.) while the Puppet manager lets a controller animate a virtual character during the performance. Some characters won’t be controlled through motion capture, so the Puppet Manager can allow a person to move and animated the characters in a more traditional way.

Along with this new script comes a new set and cast of characters. Here is the set for this performance, in Luster.

In the final image you can see the panel accessible only to the Stage Manager. Those are Cues, set up in advance, that lets the director set off planned events. You can see that until the final script is coded into our special XML format the general lighting and curtain controls are what is available.