All in the Detail: Volumetric Video Set to Hit Touchscreens By End of 2022

All in the detail: Volumetric video set to hit touchscreens by end of 2022 says Unity's Peter Moore By Heather McLean, Editor

Thursday, March 24, 2022 - 10:48

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Unity has created a proof of concept with UFC to bring a new level of detail to volumetric video capture

Volumetric video of live sports is set to be hitting viewers' screens far sooner than they might expect, according to Unity. The company, which is the creator of real-time 3D content development platform Unity, and Unity Metacast, a platform announced in October 2021 designed specifically for use in sports broadcasting, is working with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to bring a volumetric video offering to sports fans by the end of the year.

Unity, alongside Cisco and its subsidiary Qwilt, recently joined together to demonstrate how Unity's Metacast volumetric 3D technology can be transferred onto consumer devices via streaming with low latency.

With Quilt working on the compression algorithms for the overall system, Cisco providing the network, and Unity crunching the data to create the volumetric video, the three demonstrated the system at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year with a proof of concept developed with UFC.

The idea is we capture a full fight card and then probably look internally at what we've got and tweak it. But I think we'll be ready for primetime TV by the end of this calendar year

Unity SVP and GM of sports and live entertainment, Peter Moore, spoke to SVG Europe about how the company's technology is pushing volumetric video forward, and what is coming next for viewers. Moore was CEO at Liverpool Football Club for three years ending in 2020, and prior to that, CEO and EVP and Electronic Arts and prior to that EA Sports, and before that a pedigree that includes Microsoft and Sega.

He comments: What we have looked at it is, how do you utilise data to be able to bring the game to life in real time? As sports fans now we want to know how fast, how hard, how long, records being broken, how many passes made, all of this stuff that, as a lad growing up, you never cared about because it wasn't available.

The idea of volumetric is crazy, adds Moore. For me as a young guy growing up watching the BBC in black and white and never seeing football or sports at all, except the FA Cup Final, and then having the ability to go to colour [broadcasts], opened up my world in a way that I never imagined in the seventies.

I think now, going from 2D to 3D [with volumetric video], I think about my three and a half years at Liverpool [Football Club]; Liverpool built its success and still builds its success on data capture. Having shown my former colleagues this [technology] the last time I was over in Liverpool, they cannot wait.

UFC proof of concept

Unity developed its proof of concept using its Metacast technology working in collaboration with UFC. In Los Angeles last year Unity spent a weekend capturing two fighters in action on a sound stage. The result shows the ability to analyse the action in minute detail the grappling, the punching, the kicking with outstanding detail rendered in the fighters themselves, from tattoos to facial expressions as punches and kicks land.

It takes understanding what the consumer wants, it takes the trial and error of, is it the right experience? Is it the right price? Is it just tech for tech's sake, which is something that I've come across many times in the last 25 years of working in tech and sports, or is it something that really enhances engagement and the viewer's experience?

Unity's Metacast is a comprehensive technology stack that empowers content creators to build volumetric experiences. Once content is captured and translated into volumetric data, Metacast provides the tools and technologies that allows the data to be ingested into the Unity editor (encoded, compressed and prepped), rendered, and streamed agnostic of network or device.

On why UFC, Moore says, it's just two human beings that you have to capture volumetrically, [in a] controlled environment; no weather to worry about, and an octagon in which you can place cameras .

He goes on: If you look at the facial expressions and I've been [working] in video games with Sega, EA, and Xbox for 20 years we could never capture facial expressions because you have what's called this uncanny valley'; the face cannot react to the action. What we're doing here [with Metacast] is capturing the action, so the faces, the grimacing when a kick lands or a punch lands, and I can go back and look at what just happened, and hold, any point in time. The other thing is the octagon is imposed so dynamic advertising can be dropped in.

In LA last year Unity spent a weekend capturing two UFC fighters in action on a sound stage. The result shows the ability to analyse the action in minute detail

Astounding levels of detail

Looking at the UFC video, Moore adds: What you're looking at here is data that's being reconstituted in the Unity engine. We can go all the way, if you will, to the tap out; we can get down the ground, we can freeze it, look at the position of where [a fighter is] in a defensive position. We think this the level of detail that fans, particularly of UFC, want. So, we're about six months away from doing this in real time. We're building an octagon in Vancouver now.

Unity is building an Octagon of its own so it has full use of the space to create a solid camera plan, then it will transfer that plan to the UFC Apex octagon in Las Vegas. Says Moore: The idea then is we capture a full fight card and then probably look internally at what we've got and tweak it. But I think we'll be ready for primetime TV by the end of this calendar year.

That initial offering will be something alo

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