‘Puppymonkeybaby’ AR Mirror For Mountain Dew and Superbowl LI
Last year we had an opportunity to work on a very unique, high profile project with our friends over at Sheet Metal Alchemist for Mountain Dew and Superbowl LI. The goal was to create an AR (Augmented Reality) mirror, using a Kinect and an HDTV to mimic the movements of the user, and translate them into a characters movements on the screen. In this case, the character is Mountain Dew’s “Puppymonkeybaby” character they introduced for a Superbowl 50 ad. If you watched Superbowl 50 in 2016, then you couldn’t possibly forget the ad I’m talking about.
Using Motion Capture for AR (Augmented Reality)
The kicker was, we had to accomplish the feat on very tight corporate deadlines. The Superbowl waits for no one! The general idea of the interactive AR experience was to have the user do a end-zone celebration dance as Mountain Dew’s Puppymoneybaby mascot. It was a great hit with kids of all ages (okay, you playful adults as well). Our friends over at Sheetmetal Alchemist created the entire display (they are fantastic metal artists, and I suggest contacting them if you need an event, set, or industrial design created), then added our interactive component. A software interface using mobile devices was then incorporated to our experience to collect user information, and send them an Instagram video they could then share with their friends.
This isn’t our first time using a Kinect with Unity, since we’ve developed Cinema Mo Cap in the past (a popular motion capture solution for Unity). This gave us a great set of tools to adapt our existing motion capture technology for a real time, AR solution.
Creating Digital Assets
We imported the same model the animators on the commercial used into to Unity3D (our development platform for almost everything we do) and optimized it for real time rendering. This involved ditching the photo realistic fur used in the original spot, and replacing it with fur that can be rendered much more quickly. We also created a few fun costumes for the character, including a referee, a cheerleader, players, and a hot dog vendor.
Touchdown!
The end result was well received by the attendees over at the Superbowl, as well as by Sheet Metal Alchemist. Here’s what their Lead Designer had to say about working with us:
“The team at Cinema Suite did a fantastic job under impressively short timetables. In only 2 weeks, the team was able to modify existing MoCap software, create new artwork, and import client assets into a Unity platform which was deployed at Super Bowl LI in Houston. We’d recommend Dan and his team to anyone!” -Sean Cusack, Lead Designer, SMA Events.
There was also a nice summary written about this experience as well as some of the other top experiences available at Superbowl fan day.
http://www.eventmarketer.com/article/roundup-super-bowl-li-activations-and-events/
Here at Cinema Suite we are proving interactive solutions using the latest in Augmented and Mixed Reality across all sorts of industries doing very cool things. If you interested in working with us to bring your project or product to life utilizing VR/AR/MR technology, please Contact us!