The COVID-19 pandemic put virtual events in the spotlight, and few companies in this market have shined brighter than Immersive Design Studios.
IDS was the force behind two of 2020’s biggest, most immersive and deeply interactive virtual events: Riot Games’ League of Legends Championship and Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within Virtual seminar.
These were both powered by the software and development company’s cloud-based CANVAS platform. Fueled by NVIDIA RTX 6000 GPUs, CANVAS delivers a range of ultra-high-resolution streaming and interactive solutions, so customers can engage audiences through any medium on any screen, anywhere in the world, whether that’s in arenas, boardrooms, virtual studios or stages.
IDS, which has been pushing creative boundaries for productions for two decades, also powered NVIDIA’s opening keynote at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, dazzling audiences with a presentation delivered on an enormous 300-foot screen.
A Virtual Tournament Out of This League
Riot Games hosts one of the largest esports events in the world — the League Championship Series (LCS) — which attracts millions of participants.
Because of the pandemic, Riot Games couldn’t host its 2020 LCS Summer Split season from its broadcast studios in Los Angeles, so IDS designed a 3D virtual world called the LCS Dome, which consisted of five studios inside a virtual space. Riot Games remotely live-streamed matches during the season, with CANVAS powering the production for each matchup.
Analysts and gamers appeared inside the virtual environment as they followed live gamers battling for the championship. The entire season ran on CANVAS and was broadcast from the cloud to millions of viewers.
The virtual studio ran in the cloud, delivering stunning 3D virtual environments with seamless integration of remote video feeds from various participants. The LCS team easily integrated CANVAS into their existing broadcast workflow for live, fully cloud-based control over all components of the virtual studio with nothing more than an iPad.
Everybody was at home, including the people who were broadcasting and operating the studio.
“What’s really important is finding new ways for people to connect. It’s the quality of experience that defines whether it’s memorable,” said Thomas Soetens, CEO and co-founder at Immersive Design Studios. “With NVIDIA RTX GPUs, our CANVAS platform was able to make anything happen in that studio virtually — from branding to public participation.”
CANVAS Brings Zoom Call Creativity in 360 Degrees
Tony Robbins is an author, coach, motivational speaker and philanthropist. Using CANVAS, IDS helped Robbins and his team turn his physical seminars into virtual events that attracted tens of thousands of participants from around the world.
Robbins’ first virtual event, Unleash The Power Within Virtual, was a live, 360-degree interactive experience. IDS designed Robbins’ virtual studio using CANVAS to create an immersive, bi-directional experience for everyone. CANVAS allowed Robbins to see all of his 23,000 attendees simultaneously and interact with audience participants in real time.
Robbins’ CANVAS studio is equipped with a massive 360-degree screen and immersive sound system that serve to recreate the energy of a crowded arena. Six projectors, all in 4K resolution, displayed a custom Zoom interface showing tens of thousands of participants, any of whom could be enlarged or moved around instantly. And all the visuals were rendered in real time, at 60 frames per second.
The virtual event brought a new level of flexibility, as Robbins could move freely throughout the studio space, engaging with audience members virtually while his production team managed elements like music, lighting and visual effects.
“We were able to connect the Zoom platform and create new controls for Zoom, whether it was bringing someone full screen above a beautiful background, displaying the participants in irregular grids or applying AI for mood recognition,” said Kora Van den Bulcke, president and co-founder at Immersive Design Studios. “With the 360-degree space, the spatial sound and the real-time visuals rendered with RTX, it created this immersive experience that allowed the presenter to engage with his audience in a powerful way.”
This approach is already spreading throughout the business community as a new standard for virtual events. Last month, the state-of-the-art GoPro Studio opened in Las Vegas, with a 360-degree LED wall designed as a permanent venue for virtual and hybrid events even beyond the COVID era. The studio’s inaugural event, called Virtual GoPro, drew over 40,000 attendees to hear insights from coaches and guests such as actor Sylvester Stallone.
Learn more about how Immersive Design Studios is using the latest features of CANVAS and NVIDIA RTX to create powerful bi-directional audience engagement, raising the bar for what virtual events can achieve.