RealMotion™, the technology division of the award-winning experiential design studio Float4, today announced that, together with Float4 and Materials & Methods, it has provided the backbone for an entirely new kind of permanently-installed interactive video wall for Royal Caribbean International’s new Ovation of the Seas cruise ship that took its maiden voyage in April 2016. Click here to watch a video of the installation.
Described by Royal Caribbean as the newest and third ship in their Quantum Class of ships, Ovation of the Seas features the same groundbreaking venues as its sister ships, Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas, and is designed to take cruisers to new heights in guest activities, entertainment and dining options.
“When designing Ovation of the Seas, Royal Caribbean wanted to create an entirely new standard for guest experiences,” explained RealMotion Chief Technology Officer Sevan Dalkian. “They wanted to instill a ‘wow’ factor in every part of the ship’s public spaces. RealMotion technology was selected as the backbone for Materials & Methods’ vision for this first of its kind, constantly changing and evolving, gesture-driven art wall on the ship’s main esplanade that engages all 4,180 double-occupancy passengers who travel on the ship.”
According to Dalkian, the RealMotion solution enabled continuously changing content on the 8’ x 20’ digital art wall that reacts to each person passing by, and can be controlled through gestural interactivity. As interactive content producers, Float4’s team integrated the creative assets to bring the concept to life. A wide sweeping gesture can brush across the image, altering color or pattern, creating ripples, causing flowers to bloom or particles to disperse, revealing colors or adding layers. A short, sharp motion alters the canvas differently, giving the user the ability to paint with a quickly learned movement “language.” Watching the vibrant canvas respond to bodies in space is arresting, and invites an audience of every type of passenger to want to engage and play.
“The installation is featured at the heart of the ship in the main esplanade, and consists of eight LCD displays that are staggered asymmetrically,” explained Dalkian. “The displays are surrounded by frosted glass panels backlit by LEDs. An infrared camera tracks the movements of each passerby, and interactive programming translates their motion to visual effect. The visual content moves seamlessly between LCD screens and the lower resolution LED areas of the canvas, sharpened and softened respectively as the content spreads like pools of paint off of the high resolution displays. There are nine themes of visual content, so individuals encounter an entirely different interactive experience each time they pass.”
The build was designed to be modular and low-impact, for a quick and efficient installation process onboard. The wall was first fully constructed in Materials & Methods studios alongside Float4’s programming support and disassembled as a kit of pre-wired panels and movable parts with built-in capacity to adapt to varying installation circumstances while achieving extremely precise tolerances. It was designed to be entirely front serviceable, allowing for easy access for any required maintenance throughout the life of the wall.
The vision behind RealMotion™ is to provide a technology ecosystem that can empower ideation through the prototyping, execution, delivery and monitoring of next-generation immersive and interactive environments. RealMotion’s purpose is to be omnipresent in all stages of the production pipeline. From the early stages of a project, through production completion and final commissioning, RealMotion provides a robust and impactful architecture for interactive content generation, delivery and maintenance.
Available in Ultra, Pro, Lite, and Micro system configurations to meet specific project needs, the RealMotion platform consists of three core components. The RM Designer module empowers users to create, collaborate and deploy content utilizing real-time content editing, generation and compositing software. RM Servers host, generate, connect and enable real-time content manipulation, playback, and delivery. The RM Admin module provides online system monitoring, information flow, and management.
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