Uses gaming tech
TORONTO — To engage the newest generation of French language learners born in the digital era of smartphones and tablets, educational TV content producer Groupe Média TFO has launched its Virtual Universe Laboratory (or LUV, for Laboratoire d’univers virtuels), which uses video game technologies to create dynamic, virtual reality video content.
Initially, Groupe Média TFO is using LUV to produce some of its short-form Mini TFO video content, posted to YouTube and the TFO.org website. Groupe Média TFO’s long-term plan is to offer LUV’s services to external video production companies as a way to commercialize the LUV environment.
LUV was officially launched on October 27, with Ontario Minister of Education Mitzie Hunter and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs Marie-France Lalonde. Speaking at the launch, Groupe Média TFO’s president and CEO, Glenn O’Farrell, said the LUV video production studio is all about innovation and providing engaging content for new learners.
“At the core, TFO is a digital, educational, Francophone enterprise. Those are the three things that we distinguish ourselves as. We’re digital because we have to be relevant in the digital age, through educational content that is French first. And we find that there are not only learning audiences in Ontario who very much want this kind of content. We’re finding learning audiences across the country, and in fact, through digital platforms, across the world, who are interested in these kinds of programming offerings,” O’Farrell said.
Prior to the official launch of LUV, media were given a tour of the new studio (pictured) and its control room by TFO’s vice-president and chief technology officer, Éric Minoli, its broadcast facilities manager, Cliff Lavallée, and one of Mini TFO’s hosts, writer and actor Christopher Webb.
Minoli explained the idea for LUV started a year and a half ago, when the Mini TFO brand was growing, and one of the TV show’s directors asked if the original set featuring a house and garden could be expanded to include a village with a bakery. Due to the limited space in the studio, he said the technical team started to look at the possibility of using virtual sets, commonly used in the broadcast industry for news, weather and sports content. However, in its initial test of virtual sets, the experience fell short. The sets were visually flat and the system wasn’t powerful enough to produce the kind of sets that would engage kids’ imaginations.
“They wanted to have funky buildings, mushrooms…,” Minoli said. “Whimsical universes,” interjected show actor Webb.
So, they began exploring the use of gaming technology to create more dynamic virtual environments for its video content, Minoli said. In April 2016, TFO assembled an international team of tech experts from vendors around the world, including Zero Density (Istanbul, Turkey), Epic Games (Raleigh, N.C.), Stype (Zagreb, Croatia), Mo-Sys (London, UK), Ross Video (Iroquois, Ont.) and CEV and Applied Electronics (Toronto).
“I think now we are moving to the new generation of video production.” – Éric Minoli, TFO
“So they all flew in (to Toronto). It was kind of funny because it was all these 20-year-old guys. We did that over a weekend, and it was kind of magic, trying to make everything work together, because it was a bunch of pieces that we tried to put together. The experience was incredible. When we saw the product, I said, ‘Okay, I think now we are moving to the new generation of video production,’” Minoli said.
Webb added, as someone who has grown up with video games, he finds it magical to be put into an environment where Epic’s Unreal Engine gaming engine is being used to create virtual worlds for him to act in and write for. “With kid entertainment, it’s always evolving and just to be up and a leader in the environment, we had to evolve with them. That’s why we slowly went toward a more gaming approach, and the possibilities are infinite, really,” he said. “(Before) we had to write being limited by the four walls we built, flat surfaces. Now we can be in space, underwater, whatever we want.”
The LUV studio uses green-screen technology and cameras equipped with tracking sensors to position live actors in the virtual worlds, so it requires rehearsal ahead of time for the actors, Webb explained. “It’s a new way of working, it’s a lot of playing pretend…it’s just a new way of bringing your acting experience,” Webb said.
Minoli said there has been a new “vibe” at TFO since the proof-of-concept technology integration project was done in April. Where previously TFO’s production people and technical people worked in different silos, now everyone is “really like kind of a big team, and everybody’s working in the same environment and really helping each other to make it work,” Minoli said.
Broadcast facilities manager Lavallée said the broadcaster needed to build new control rooms for the LUV studio, which it completed in just eight months – and then production staff had to be retrained because people who were more graphics-oriented now need to understand video levels and making necessary adjustments in the studio on the fly.
“We had to create new positions that didn’t exist anywhere,” Minoli said, adding that the required skills include 3D modelling, gaming engine programming and studio production skills.
TFO hired a Los Angeles-based consultant, with previous movie experience working on Star Wars and Ghostbusters, to help the educational TV broadcaster’s employees understand the new gaming engine technology, Minoli said. “Frankly, we’re still maybe at 50% of what we can do with the technology. We started in August, we’re still on a learning curve,” he added.
Phase 2 of TFO’s plans for the LUV environment is to integrate motion capture technology, which it hopes to do by next spring. “The idea is to integrate real-time ‘cartoonish characters’ with the hosts.” TFO is looking to convert other TV shows, such as its #ONfr current affairs show, into the LUV environment, as the LUV allows the broadcaster to do augmented reality in a real set.
“Then you can compose your own set the way you want.” – Minoli
Beyond using LUV to produce its own video content and TV show segments, TFO is planning to commercialize the new studio. “Presently, we are discussing with two external production companies to provide them with the services of conception of virtual sets with the gaming engine and also the shooting of their series in our LUV,” Minoli said in a follow-up email to Cartt.ca.
TFO executives didn’t release financial details about how much it has invested in the LUV environment but Minoli pointed out the Unreal Engine gaming engine from Epic Games is open source (Epic first made Unreal Engine 4 available to download for free in March 2015). “Using a solution from the gaming world allows us to create the LUV for a fraction of the cost of a traditional broadcast virtual set solution,” he added.
Minoli noted it typically costs between $80,000 and $150,000 to build a real, physical TV studio set. The LUV set that media was shown during the tour cost about $300 to build physically, Minoli said. Using gaming engine technology, TFO can add new virtual sets by buying sets and components for as little as $19 or $30 from online gaming community marketplaces.
“Then you can compose your own set the way you want…(with) things that cannot be produced in virtual environments actually on the broadcast side. You can do it on the gaming side, but you cannot do it on the broadcast side,” he said, adding virtual features such as fire or fog are made possible with the game engine technology.
Also, because the LUV studio is used to produce live-to-tape content, there is no need for post-production and therefore editing time is saved, Minoli said.
During an interview with Cartt.ca, Lavallée added that although TFO has not produced any live-to-air content yet, the LUV environment offers the capability to do live-to-air situations. It’s a case of “walking before you run,” he explained.
