Real-time immersive hover-board experience in hyper-real skatepark, 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show.
12 days
Building on Lexus’ groundbreaking innovation in creating the world’s first fully functioning hover-board, Spinifex, George P. Johnson and The Mill were challenged to craft a real-time immersive ride that brought the rare experience of riding the Lexus Slide around its custom skatepark at the 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show. Users started the experience by standing on a pressure-sensitive controller that monitored the user’s weight distribution. The speed and orientation of the Hoverboard ride through the virtual skate park were affected as the user leant forward, back, or side-to-side on a hardware hacked physical board.
The hyper-real skate park and surrounds were crafted in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, and custom software was written to distribute synchronised content across all 18 HD screens in the video cave at 60 frames per second. Event-based spatial audio was created and integrated into Unreal for 360 degree audio. A multiple camera system set up within the experience captured each user’s unique ride, allowing them to save and socially share a 15 second movie of their personal Lexus Hover Board experience, using the hash tags #Lexus and #Hoverboard. The custom video capture system ran on TouchDesigner, which communicated with both Unreal and iOS devices for user queue and start of experience, as well as managed realtime colour correction and editing.