Signal Space Lab delves into the human condition in Afterlife, a live-action VR title launching in Winter 2019, debuting their pioneering technique Seamless Interactive Cinematic for Live Action VR content.
November 20th, 2018 – Signal Space Labs, an industry-leading, production-house-turned VR studio, is ready to shake the virtual-world with Afterlife, a narrative-focused look into one family’s grief after a tragedy as they struggle to deal with their new reality. Challenged to find meaning a mother in denial, a daughter in search of herself and an absent father try to deal with their grief.
Afterlife uses a new VR technique dubbed Seamless Interactive Cinematic VR which does away with loading screens. Inspired by choose-your-own-adventure games and multi-linear stories, Seamless Interactive Cinematic VR allows treating live-action footage as dynamic content by enabling the experience to adapt organically to the behavior of the audience. The technique combines gaze-control to identify areas of user’s appeal and timing, the design and mapping of branches, and a careful continuity and transition treatment on set. Players would be able to entirely lose themselves in the narrative story without breaking their immersion with distracting scene breaks or deliberate decision making.
To bring the story to life with motion cameras, the studio created a 3 axis suspended crane system adapted to VR cameras, specially design for indoor on-set use. By leveraging on the current VR sensors and position retrieval from controls, the crane provided the production team to draw in the space and automate camera desire movement sequences and replicate them at will.
Afterlife is set to release in Q1 of 2019 on Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, and GearVR, with additional platforms being announced closer to launch. The first installment of Afterlife will be free to allow players to test this newly developed technology for themselves.
Learn more at www.afterlife-vr.com.
ABOUT AFTERLIFE
A family struggles with the loss of their familial anchor and attempts to mend their frayed bonds. Experience each storyline through a child’s eyes. Using a cutting-edge VR filming technique, Afterlife takes the audience through branching narrative that seamlessly reveals a story that shifts based on the characters that the player chooses to follow and the objects activated within the environment.
KEY FEATURES
- Seamless Interactive Cinematic VR allows players to intuitively affect the story – no loading screens means players are fully immersed without interruptions from start to finish.
- Seamlessly navigate and interact in a rich live-action narrative where no playthroughs are alike – Thousands of unique, story-driven choices means that no two endings will be the same.
- The first installment of the three-part arc is free to experience.
- Experience Afterlife through the eyes of a child — Live-action footage helps retain immersion and strongly connects players with their surroundings.
- + More to be announced as we lead up to launch.
About Signal Space Labs
Founded in 2015, Signal Space Lab is a forward-thinking production house that combines exceptional talent in two specialized Visual and Audio labs to design modular end-to-end solutions for audio, linear and virtual extended reality (XR) projects.
Signal Space Lab debuted in the virtual space with the hybrid experience “We Happy Few: Uncle Jack Live VR” in collaboration with Compulsion Games and Gearbox Publishing. The studio has received praise from its peers in the audio market and has been part of some of the best interactive titles for both AAA and indie developers, including Ludia with Jurassic World Alive and Compulsion Games with We Happy Few and Contrast.
On the visual side, the studio develops IP’s and techniques to integrate seamlessly interactions in live-action. The advancements in cinematic techniques took one of their early prototypes to Cannes 2018, and it’s now the base of the upcoming interactive VR film Afterlife (2019).
Either practical, artistic, realistic or magical, Signal Space Lab finds the intersection between people, brands, sounds and technology to bring concepts to life.
