 Welcome to CreateCon. I am so excited you guys are all here. Tonight is all about celebrating the creative process. They are called Optical Animals. They do video design and really dope projection mapping. Without further ado, I would like to introduce to you Optical Animal, Max and Austin. Hi everyone, I'm Max. I'm Austin. We're Optical Animal. We're a creative video design studio out of Brooklyn. We do all kinds of things from projection mapping, which involves projecting with multiple projectors onto large facade surfaces or 3D sculptures to create perception bending effects, to doing creative visual designs for installations that are built with custom LED fixtures and other kinds of custom technology. We also do live visuals for concerts. Austin could talk about that. We work with musicians and bring every single element of their show to bring a full cohesive audio-visual experience to have the huge shows that you'll see at the Palladium, Staples Center, or any other venue across the world. Of course, at the backbone of everything we do is the system. We work on custom hardware and software solutions to always have the most powerful system we possibly can to have our custom assets running in real time. Today we're going to talk to you guys about our projection mapping process. Before we dive into this prototype installation that we've built for you guys here, we want to talk a little bit about what goes into the projection mapping process. In the case of this installation, we have a 3D sculpture, which actually began as a 3D model in a piece of software. We take that 3D model and then what we have to do is design visual content that will be projected onto it. In order to do that, we take the 3D shape and unwrap it into a two-dimensional pixel map. That looks kind of like this. Up here what you're seeing is the pixel map that is actually being used to generate content for this sculpture. Each and every one of those letters and shapes represents one of the surfaces on the sculpture. What we do with that pixel map is then create visuals, animations, to then align with all those pixel maps. Then what we do is use the projection mapping process. In this case, we're actually using a software called MadMapper to do the mapping aspect. We'll open up MadMapper and we'll show you guys a little bit of that process. Each and every one of those surfaces, we have individual control over. We're able to pinpoint the exact position of each surface and that allows us to basically have the projections lining up exactly how we want them on the 3D sculpture from wherever the projectors are coming from. We actually have two projectors right now that are hitting the sculpture. There's one there and there's one there. Basically, the one on the left here, or stage left, is projecting onto this side of the sculpture. The one on stage right there is projecting onto the other side. That way we have the perfect optimal angle of projection for each. Right now, we're only using two projectors to illuminate this installation, but really projection mapping is amazing because it's such a limitless possibility for creativity. Really the only limit to how many projectors you can add together to create cohesive installation is the technology you're working with. That's why we're really excited today to talk about Intel Optane Memory because that has really allowed us to take our projection mapping process and push it even further because what we do when we do projection mapping is we're layering up multiple layers of content, running multiple pieces of software, and this can be really taxing on a system. When we're designing a system for an installation like this, we actually have to test it out ahead of time and find out exactly what it can do. We want to figure out what are the limits, and then when we get to that limit, we want to lock it in, get everything dialed in, and we don't really want to push it that much further. What always ends up happening is we have these installations running on site and then maybe the creative director comes up, and what they usually say is, you know, we like it, but can you actually add a little bit of something here? Maybe make it move a little bit more, make it more dynamic, that's the word we hear a lot. A lot of times we get asked to do these last minute changes, and I sometimes have to resist that and say, well, you know, this is already dialed in, like we don't want to necessarily bring in new content because it's already running live in front of an audience and we don't want to see any frame rate drops. So, you know, sometimes I have to say, well, sorry, but this is how it is. But I'd really love to be able to give them the freedom to expand the installation, to add things last minute. So let's actually bring someone up from the audience to be our resident creative director. Anyone? Can I? Yep. You were quick to raise your hand. All right, come on up. Welcome to the stage. What's your name? Chrissy. How long have you been a creative director? Two years. Awesome. All right. Great deal. So, okay, so come on, take a look over here at our touch screen interface here, and we're going to teach you how to use it a little bit. So each of these lines here represents a layer of content. So what you can actually do is on the right side, there's a slider which brings up the opacity of that layer of content, and then each of these squares is a different option. So, you know, for example, you can bring the slider up. So go ahead and give it a try. Bring that slider on the bottom layer up. Great, great. Okay, cool. And then let's go to this top layer here and bring that slider up. Yeah, go, perfect. Awesome. So right now we have some tracers going on. Go ahead and select some of the different options for that top layer. We can see what those look like. Okay, cool. So we have all these different clips loaded in that show the different options for that layer. So now let's bring in this other layer here and see what's going on. This is the 3D content. Okay, cool. So we have some 3D-perspectivized content. Wait, what was that creative director? You want more options for that layer? Yes. Oh, okay, well, okay, you know what? Let's go ahead and drag some new content in. And audience, keep your eye on the sculpture and you'll notice that even though we're loading in content in real time and free programming the installation, playback is still seamless. Okay, so now we have some several other options. Let's look through those other options in the 3D layer. Okay, let's watch this one for a second. Okay, she doesn't like that one. All right, we're moving on. I like that one. She likes the first one. Okay, cool. So, wait, what was that? You still want more? Okay, all right. Give me more. Okay, fine, all right. So the creative director has asked us to add more layers. We already have three layers running and before you add that in there, Austin, I just want to say, you know, we wouldn't normally want to go beyond three layers, especially with a system that's using spinning hard drives because when you're running multiple clips simultaneously that can really throttle the hard drive. So with Intel Optane Memory, we had the opportunity to add on even more layers and actually just a quick aside, as we were testing the system out before the show, we actually tried to run as many apps as we could simultaneously. So we had Resolume, After Effects, Premiere, a video game, and Chrome, and MadMapper all running simultaneously with video running in real time and there was absolutely no hiccup, no frame rate drops. So let's just go ahead and see what else we can add in. So bring in the extra content. What's the layer here? Why don't you bring up that layer with the slider and then let's select some of the different clips, this top layer here. Great. Okay, so we have some cube chases that sort of flash and illuminate the structure. You can select your favorite one. Having trouble telling the difference. Okay, I guess that one's different. All right, wait. Yeah, that was kind of like a random one. This one versus this. Okay, this or this? I think, yeah. Yeah, that one looks tight. Okay, cool. All right. So we agree. It's not enough. You want more? Okay, fine. Let's add another layer. All right, let's see what else we can do. Let's add a layer of masks. So this next layer, what this is going to do, this first one actually basically brings in another look that ends up covering the whole sculpture and release it sort of. Yeah, so here's the look. So it reveals the grid underneath. So it's a really cool 3D Perspectivized Effect. Just a real quick aside. Again, for those of you in the front row, right in the center, you guys have the best view. This is actually the perspective that we render all the content out from in our 3D model. So for those of you on the sides, it might be a little bit distorted, but with this perspective content, it's really money right from the center there. Okay, cool. So then we have this other one, which is a mask layer that reveals different aspects of the sculpture underneath. So what do you think? Should we use the one that brings up the extra look or should we have the one that reveals the sections? Am I supposed to select the one or the first or the second one? I feel like you want me to select this one. That's what you're going at. No, no, you're the creative director. It's all up to you. Right, okay. I feel like that's the one, right? Okay, cool. So let's bring in another layer. Let's just keep going. All right. So we got another layer here. We're going to add some atmospheric content. So basically what this layer is, is this footage of dry ice smoke. So it adds a little bit of an organic feel. Overall, everything keeps it just a little bit extra textural. So go ahead and select one of those options for that textural layer. This one seems like the most intense one. That one's good. Actually, you know what we could do is just real quick, let me bring these other ones down so we can really see what that layer is doing. Okay, cool. So this is the... Oh, nice. Okay, good. This one's not enough. So it's basically this one versus this. So that one's the one. I think that's a great one. That's the one, that's the one. All right, nice. So let's bring up the other ones to see our full combination. Great. So I think we did a pretty good job with this, but wait, you still want more? I want more, oh my gosh. Okay, wait, you want it to be interactive? Yes. Okay, well, all right. Well, let's see what we can do here. I've got this leap motion, which is actually a infrared motion tracking camera. And so what we're going to do is we're going to add in an interactive layer here. And let me just bring down the other layer so you can really see it. So what you can do with this layer is actually take your hand, move it over, and then you can lift the particles up, or you can move it left or right. Yeah, so just play with that. See what you can do with those particles there? Articles, okay. Bring your hand up, like lift them up. Nice. Woo! So cool. All right, let's have a hand for our creative director. Thank you so much. Great job. So yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed that. I hope you learned a little bit about projection mapping and how that works. So thank you guys so much, and we'll see you after.