Coachella 2023

All Of It Now, trusts in SP to control complex AR workflow

OVERVIEW:
All of It Now (AOIN), a leading virtual art department and in-camera VFX integration solutions provider, never shies away from pushing the boundaries of creativity. Coachella 2023 proved to be the perfect canvas for their latest artistic endeavour, which involved crafting unique augmented reality (AR) experiences to captivate one of the most demanding audiences on the festival circuit. AOIN turned to Stage Precision’s SP software, a powerful data and control management software they had used before, but now hoped to deploy on a much grander scale.

CHALLENGE: 
As the sun rose on Coachella 2023, AOIN faced several challenges. The project brief included enhancing the main stage livestream broadcast to create a new augmented reality platform for artists including Gorillaz, Bad Bunny and Blackpink. As a central component of Coachella’s 2023 marketing campaign, AOIN introduced the “mirage effect,” an interstitial element that combined real-world objects with digital elements, a task undertaken within Unreal Engine’s real-time compositing pipeline. To achieve this, AOIN collaborated closely with stYpe’s team to develop a custom compositing solution.

 “The Coachella project was difficult because we had to manage a large amount of incoming data as well as send out a large amount of outgoing data to trigger specific events and effects,” recalls Danny Firpo, CEO at AOIN. “This difficulty was compounded by the fact that we were working with multiple teams, which created complex programming challenges.”

SOLUTION:
Amidst the challenges, SP by Stage Precision emerged as the ultimate operator controller, bringing together the entire workflow. “We used SP board views to create a user interface to monitor all engines and cue lists at a glance,” remarks Firpo. “This removed our need to visit each individual machine; a gamechanger as we were able to control all six engines from one desk, with timecode, tracking data and genlock united into a single source of truth.”

Alongside control and monitoring capabilities, SP offered the AOIN team other advantages to traditional workflows. “The 3D visualiser allowed us to visualise in 3D space, as opposed to 2D, which helped us to think differently about the environment and space that we were augmenting,” says Firpo, highlighting the versatility of SP’s software features. “Additionally, we used SP to control our video router to switch between mains and backup engines, whilst the robust cue list system provided us with a method of triggering all engines simultaneously via OSC, with scalable control via unicast commands.”

Using SP by Stage Precision, All of It Now delivered an eclectic mix of incredible virtual reality experiences.

Looking to the future, the team considers Stage Precision a key tool in their mission to usher in a new era of AR experiences. “At this year’s festival, we supported three artists as well as Coachella’s marketing team. SP allowed us to maintain the cues and commands for each specific artist, segmenting them so there was no chance of mistakenly cueing the wrong content during a performance,” explains Firpo. “With this workflow, we are prepared to scale to support more artists in 2024 and beyond, as well as open the possibilities to support more tracked cameras and engines in the future.”