Friday, 26 October 2018

360 Friday @ University of Tampere - Friday 12th October


Following Mindtrek 2018, the International Technology Conference (10-11th October) at Tampere Hall, the first 360 Friday event was held at the University of Tampere. Those who registered for the free side event were able to explore a number of VR, AR and 360 productions presented by representatives from the University of Tampere, Tampere University of Technology and TAMK.


Attendees were welcome to enjoy some beers and snacks as the host, Juhani Linna from the University of Tampere introduced and interviewed some of the creators. Markku Turunen, professor of Interactive Technology at the university also shortly introduced TAUCHI (Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction), a ‘research center focusing on human-technology interaction’ at the Faculty of Communication Sciences. After a few talks and presentations about work processes, the guests scattered to delve into the various demos.


The following productions from staff and students at Media and Arts were displayed at the event:

Virtual Art Gallery - Liya Pirkuliyeva, Ignasi Granell Vendrell and Tatu Heinämäki
Attendants were able to view the VR art gallery presenting works from the degree show ‘HOT FUTURES’ held this spring exhibiting the works of the graduating class of 2014. The viewer was able to pick the artist whose works they wanted to see by picking up a tape with their name and inserting it into a player. They could also throw black paint onto the paintings and watch video works.

Virtual Art Gallery

Locked Up - Carita Forsgren
Those who dared got to watch the 4-minute 360 thriller, co-produced by TAMK and YLE, at the first public viewing of the short film.

First public viewing of 'Locked Up'

Fintan Sauna Experience - Antti Perälä
A VR collaboration between TAMK and the Finnish Embassy in Tokyo aiming to bring Japan an authentic sauna experience, incorporating Fintan, the embassy’s mascot. Guests were able to shower and enjoy the virtual sauna by putting on the VR gear.

Fintan Sauna Experience

The event also featured projects from other associations such as the premiere of ‘Eternal Youth’, a 360 experience with a peaceful finnish winter environment, created by the University of Tampere and Helsingin Sanomat. The purpose of the collaboration was to explore the concept of meditation in a VR environment. ‘Captain Karl’, a short VR documentary by Rakka Creative and an  interactive omni-directional video (iODV/360) editor presented by Kimmo Ronkainen from the university were also featured.

'Eternal Youth' meditation experience

All in all the small event succeeded in displaying a compelling range of examples of how 360 technology can be put to use for different creative purposes, giving an insight to the future of more interactive and immersive media.


Text and photos: Hilma Nurmi 2018

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Friday, 5 October 2018

XR Challenge @ Mediapolis, 18-19th September 2018

The first XR Challenge event was held at Mediapolis on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th September. It was organized by Business Tampere and Virtual Reality Finland in collaboration with TAMK, Business Finland and Leonidas, a local company specializing in web and mobile solutions as well as VR and AR implementation. At TAMK the people in charge of production were Jukka Holm and Timo Kivikangas.
The application period for the challenge and the organization itself for the event was earlier this year in spring. Eight finalist teams were chosen from roughly 40 applicants from numerous countries who submitted their initial concepts and ideas, to present their full demos at the event.
With the challenge portion itself being held on Tuesday, six teams that made it to the finals presented 10-minute pitches about their solutions to the range of judges. The jury included representatives from the three participating finnish industrial companies: Valmet, Fastems and Glaston, as well as Leonidas.
The six finalists in order of their pitches were CAM (Eligio.studio), Voconaut, Cybercom, Softability, Intopalo and SimLab IT.
The teams presented a variety of carefully planned and developed solutions to the issues presented by the three companies. After the pitches, the finalists presented their demos at their stands in the exhibition area, and the judges met up to discuss and decide on the winners of the challenge.


Day 2, Wednesday, consisted of the open XR seminar, hosted and moderated by writer, actor, improviser and producer Trent Pancy, and an exhibition with 30 different stands showcasing a variety of virtual, augmented and mixed reality demos, gear and solutions. TAMK also had a presence at the exhibition: guests were able to explore a VR art exhibition and a 360º-music video by students from Media and Arts, and a ‘virtual forest’ created by main campus students.

 The associations that were showcasing their work were Rakka Creative Oy, TouchDown Creations, Oplatek Group Oy, Tridify Oy, Delta Cygni Labs, VirtualTraveller, Softability Group Oy, Fuusio Labs, Rejlers, VimAI, SMACC, AR Video Booth, Exove Oy, Teatime Research Ltd, Stereoscape Oy, Visuon (Visumo Oy), Realmax Oy, Leonidas Oy, Cybercom, Eligo.Studio Oy, Intopalo Oy, Voconaut and Simlab IT Oy.



In the afternoon, the winners of the challenge were announced on stage at the United Studio. The finalists competed for a total prize sum of 40,000€, with second and third place each receiving 5,000€, and the first place winner getting 30,000€.
3rd place: SimLab IT
2nd place: Manu AR, Teemu Tiainen, Karelia University of Applied Sciences
1st place: Voconaut
Voconaut, a team consisting of sound designers and web developers, claimed the first place prize with their augmented audio technology. It is designed to be utilized in factory environment, allowing for a number of improvements and advantages in different areas of production. The aim is to create a ‘full sonic layer for the client’s environment’ to solve and minimize issues like growing work spaces and visual technology distracting and requiring employees to attend to screens for information. The vision is for ‘ears to become the new screen’, which lets workers receive information tailored to specifically to them on-the-go, resulting in better focus on the task at hand.
Following the announcement of the winners, the seminar continued with lectures from multiple speakers with expertise in the field of VR/AR/XR. The first to speak was Steven M. Lavalle, who is currently a professor at the University of Oulu. He was an early founder american technology company Oculus VR and is the Chief Scientist of VR/AR/MR at Huawei Technologies. His lecture, titled ‘The Harsh Realities of Making XR’ explored the numerous limitations in the field, such as issues with perception, comfort and wirelessness.

Steven LaValle
The second speaker was Antti Kuosmanen, Surface Business Group Lead at Microsoft, with a presentation titled ‘Digital transformations and Mixed reality’, who gave an insightful introduction to the context of digitalization and the steps that are required for developement.
The final presentation was by Markus Heinonen from Varjo Technologies, regarding their solution to the certain issues when it comes to VR such as the narrow field-of-vision which was mentioned by Lavalle earlier in the seminar. Their solution was inspired by the ability of human vision to show clearly and in detail the area which is being focused on, while everything on the periphery is much less detailed. ‘Bionic display’ is the technical implementation of this function, allowing for clearer visuals.
The seminar was livestreamed on Youtube and can still be watched at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYe-eWx16FHemRgvWblJPyA
The seminar day concluded with two workshops, one held by XR developers Kari-Pekka Lammi and Jari Nevala from Leonidas, and another by Mika Isomaa, Developer Relations Engineer at Unity Technologies.
All in all, the event had a great turnout with a full house during the seminars, and a range of interesting displays and presentations about virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies, and will hopefully be organized again next year to give more opportunities for those who are interested in the field, as well as the experts who can apply their knowledge and companies that employ these technologies to better their business.

 Article in Finnish on the event by Business Tampere Magazine: https://businesstamperemagazine.fi/artikkelit/xr-challenge-toi-ihmiset-ja-ideat-yhteen

Post by Business Tampere in Finnish: https://www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/nyt-on-aika-hyodyntaa-xr-teknologiaa?publisherId=54555086&releaseId=69843068

Text and photos: Hilma Nurmi 2018
Edits of photos: CF













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Tuesday, 31 October 2017

CREATING A 360 VIDEO EXPERIENCE OF THE ANNIVERSARY MOOMIN CONCERT

7.8.-9.8.2017

“TAMK offers amazing opportunities to students who are passionate and driven, motivated to learn and eager to face new challenges.”


In order to celebrate the opening of the new Moomin museum and the mother of Moomins Tove Jansson’s birthday Tampere’s Philharmonic Orchestra collaborated with vocalists, a dancer, two narrators and the Pirkanpojat Boy’s choir. They performed an unforgettable spectacle featuring a vivid soundscape and immersive storytelling of the unique atmosphere in the Moomin books. The show was sold out which tells a lot about the love we share for Moomins.

TAMK in collaboration with Nokia Technologies was in charge of capturing the performance in a 360 video using four professional OZO 360- cameras positioned around the stage. This makes the production probably the largest of its kind done in Finland with this high tech equipment. Three TAMK students, Mark Malyshev (audio), Juhana Sarkki (video) and Jousia Lappi (video and audio), were involved in the making of this video that will be released by Tampere-hall as a three to four minute video clip and used, also by Moomin.com and Tampere Philharmony etc. The idea was to make an immersive experience taking advantage of 360 video. There were also TAMK alumni and lecturers involved in the production.

Jonne Valtonen (composer/TAMK alumnus), Tipi Tuovinen (TAMK's teacher), Jussi Tervo (audio engineer/Piramk alumnus), Mark Malyshev (present student at Media and Arts), Kai Saastamoinen (FOH engineer at Tampere-hall/Piramk alumnus).

The collaboration between Media and Arts and Nokia Technologies has been going on for one and a half years already. This team has worked with for example, RSO, HKO, Lost in Music, Steve ‘n’ Seagulls (360 live) and 69 Eyes to produce different kinds of experimental virtual reality contents.

The TAMK students got involved into the collaboration with Nokia last year. Mark was chosen for the audio side and Juhana for the video side. Both Mark and Juhana were ready to face a new challenge and work as pioneers with something that had not been done much before. Having TAMK's teachers Janne Tauriainen and Tipi Tuovinen present at the Moomin concert all the time supporting in production preparations and later post production played also significant role in TAMK's teams work.

“Keep an eye out for potential projects and prepare yourself. You might not be the one who decides in the end but you should aim to be the one chosen.”
-Mark Malyshev

First day was spent setting up the cameras and figuring out the positions so that they would not obstruct the view of the audience or any of the performers. During the philharmonic orchestra’s rehearsal, they made sure that the cameras are in the right place for the end product and later made the required adjustments. One of the main focuses was also to make sure that all devices were running smoothly and that there were no problems with capturing the feed from the cameras. Each camera has its own audio and video perspective giving more variation to choose from.


The first camera was positioned in front of the conductor, Santtu-Matias Rouvali. The other three are located around the stage in order to cover as much ground as possible regarding the audio and the video. As the performance has many parts, it was essential to make sure all of them were captured properly. There was a lot to take into consideration when figuring out where the cameras will be put. One more challenge for the positioning was the simultaneous multi camera video production (with 6 cameras) done by Tampere-hall. Luckily all went well and collaboration with director Timo Suomi was easy and professional.

“Shooting 360 video is completely different from how you would shoot normally. It takes a lot of thinking and planning on a whole new level to figure out the placement of the cameras.”
-Juhana Sarkki

As these guys have already worked with the OZOs and virtual reality shooting before they have already given up the most wild ideas such as remote controlled drones and hanging the cameras from the ceiling. There is always room for exploration with these kinds of projects but our team of professionals know their way around the field and know what can and cannot be done. The technology is also still new and constantly improving and they have fortunately been able to move past some issues they had before, such as the cameras using up their batteries too quickly or losing the signal. The fact that they were using four cameras and that there were many points of interest made this production different from the ones before it.

The room for monitoring the cameras was located right next to the stage where as the mixing was done in another room. This part of the setting up required taping the cables to the floor and other objects to prevent anyone from tripping on them or anything becoming unplugged. This was also done on stage with the camera and microphone cables.


The second rehearsal day mostly consisted of more fine-tuning with the cameras and mics. As always with these large scale productions there are compromises that have to be made. For example, one of the cameras was moved because it was in the way of the dancer. It was later found that she had adjusted her choreography so that now the new placement was in the way and the camera had to be moved back to its original position. In addition, one of the cameras was in front of the stage on the left side where as the narrator was on the right side. It was still decided in the end that the camera should be left where it was.

“One thing I have definitely learned is that you always have to make compromises but what makes you a professional is when you know where and when you can make them.”
-Juhana Sarkki

Originally, there were 21 microphones and later many more were added, for example a 7.0 mic array was set up done by Tipi Tuovinen. 7 ambience mics were used to capture Dolby Atmos sound for the first time in Finland. Mic placement was done by Jussi Tervo and assisted by Tipi and Janne. Marc also participated in the planning. He has previous experience with gigs and concerts and shows great talent when it comes to spatial mixing. Two of the additional mics were hanging from the ceiling and the others situated amongst the orchestra. Also, OZOs capture sound from 8 integrated mics so there was a lot of audio information recorded from the concert in order to get different viewpoints covered.


Talking to the people after the event I found out more about the whole process concerning the video and post production. For Juhana the biggest problem seemed to be that the rendering took a long time. He was also hoping to render the whole hour and a half long concert but for the time being they were focusing on producing the video clip. In addition, as the technology is new so are the programs and they still seem to have some bugs and compatibility issues and it takes time to learn how to use them. For Mark everything went quite smoothly, later just the placing of the sound sources with a flat screen proved somewhat more challenging than originally thought.

“I have learned to plan and prepare more carefully since every mistake costs even though they cannot completely be avoided.”
-Juhana Sarkki

Both of the guys would definitely recommend putting yourself out there and not being afraid to try new things. They have enjoyed the experience of collaborating with Nokia and TAMK. Looking back at the projects they have worked with they feel like they have grown as professionals. There are some things they might have done differently but now they know better and can try out something new. Both of them feel it is important to have a good team. The communication between the members and producers has been easy which in turn shows in their work. Each production differs from another but you learn how to get around in the sets and organize who is doing what and when.

“Everyone knew what they were doing and it felt great to be surrounded by professionals.”
-Mark Malyshev

Jousia Lappi (alumnus from Media and Arts), Juhana Sarkki (present student at Media and Arts), Mark Malyshev (present student at Media and Arts), Janne Tauriainen (Senior lecturer at TAMK/Head of Music Production path) and Timo Kivikangas (Head of Degree Programme).

According to Timo Kivikangas (Head of DP in Media and Arts) it has been an uplifting experience to see how well TAMK’s present students, alumni and staff have handled their demanding tasks in this unique production with Nokia Technologies, Tampere-hall and Tampere Philharmonic. Kivikangas also wanted to thank all these partners involved in this special case and being able to connect TAMK and the best professionals of each company’s field. This is the way we can learn up-to-date competences needed in a rapidly changing media sector and has provided us skills to be utilized in future with other VR/AR/MR/XR-productions.

At least for me the whole experience of following behind the stage how people worked and in this case listening to the rehearsals was an amazing experience. People working together to solve any issues that arose and supporting each other is always an inspiring sight to see. Not to mention the music that was performed, it actually send chills down my spine and I got goose bumps occasionally since it was so breath taking. As a Finn who grew up with Moomins I can definitely say all of these people working on different parts of the show did justice to Tove Jansson and the Moomins.

Written by Tiia Rintakoski

You can watch a collage of the piece here on Youtube at this address:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5tW00CikH8

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