University of Miami uses Stage Precision for virtual production learning

The integration of advanced technologies, including software Stage Precision, has helped pioneer the new lab as a hub for exploring the limits of virtual production experiences (VP) and extended reality (XR).

Stage Precision strengthens educational initiatives with the integration of SP in the Immersive and Reactive Lab y XR Stage of the University of Miami. Founded in 1809, is a liberal arts college and public research institution. In a recent expansion of its facilities, he McVey Data Science Building It opened in March and houses the Department of Emerging Technology in Business and Design (ETBD).

A state-of-the-art immersive and reactive laboratory and XR stage are one of the facilities within the new building, which houses an impressive stage of 15×21 meters and a Led wall ROE of 13×4,8 metros. The integration of advanced technologies, including Stage Precision software, has helped pioneer the new lab as a center for exploring the limits of human experiences. virtual production (VP) y extended reality (XR).

And immersive laboratory and a XR scenario It is one of the facilities inside the new building, which houses a meter stage and a Led wall ROE Visual of 13×4,8 metros. The integration of advanced technologies, including Stage Precision software, has helped pioneer the new lab as a hub for exploring the limits of virtual production experiences (VP) and extended reality (XR).

“We have around 70 students enrolled in courses for VP and XR”, explains Benjamin Nicholson, Teaching Assistant Professor and Immersion and Reaction Laboratory and Stage XR Director at the University of Miami. “Groups are learning from motion design and developing creative images for live music. They use immersive tools like Notch, TouchDesigner y Unreal Engine to carry out virtual production stages; Here they also learn how to use Stage Precision SP”.

Nicholson has been an advocate of Stage Precision workflows for several years, and discovered the software during previous work on live event projects. “in the industry, People talk about Stage Precision and the things that can be achieved through the unified workflow it provides”, Nicholson continues.. “In the laboratory context, SP allows us to take control and management of several individual native programs and equipment and place them all in a single interface that can be used for calibration and control”.

The Immersive and Reactive Lab environment includes an ROE Visual Led wall, media servers Disguise, nDisplay workflows and other media channels for two cameras. The main camera is a Komodo RED with six lenses Zeiss Prime and a zoom lens Canon. “The most important thing about SP is the lens calibration functions. We build lens profiles in SP that take the RedSpy data entry for optical tracking, explains Nicholson. Camera two offers another great example of the ease of integration of different systems in SP.

“Camera two is an interesting use case for monitoring Mars, so it's a completely different tracking system. Thanks to the agnostic nature of Stage Precision, we can integrate cameras one and two, two very separate and different tracking entries, in our SP workflow”.

When it comes to training the next generation of creative production professionals, University of Miami facilities are pioneering a new way of working that takes advantage of the freedom and flexibility possible at SP. “Students who can already understand the importance of a tool like Stage Precision, They are excited to use it in different ways”, dice Nicholson. “It is an advanced program, but training it from the beginning will give students a high level of knowledge and understanding that they can use in the real world”.

At the moment, students in the laboratory are experimenting with a workflow TouchDesigner VP, using SP as a hub to introduce lenses and tracking data into the workflow. “At the end of the semester, Students will demonstrate VP using this setup”, dice Nicholson. “My Capstone classes already use Stage Precision in real-life projects with real clients”.

The versatility obtained by having a single source of information in SP distinguishes the new facilities of the University of Miami. “With SP we can run several parallel systems at the same time. We can run a virtual production of Disguise, configure a TouchDesigner system or anything else, execute them at the same time and alternate between them”, comments Nicholson. “We have several users who can change the SP interface from to 15 different computers. What Stage Precision is doing is providing a single tracking distribution point to all the different media servers at once.".

Nicholson, one of the first university VP and XR facilities to integrate SP into the core of its curriculum, believes that learning these skills will benefit students after graduation and throughout their careers. “SP has eliminated the need for technical calibration from a single source and allows students to learn the process outside of a native software package, making it a useful foundational knowledge base that teaches skills that are transferable across different software and technologies”.