The AA 360˚ VR hazard perception project
This was a series of around 25 x 360˚ videos we created for the AA to be used as part of their 360˚ / VR hazard perception training app. I developed a bespoke, custom-made approach to capture and composit the 360˚ footage to meet the needs of a very specific brief.
AA 360˚ VR project description
This was a bespoke 360˚approach I developed for a hazard perception training app made by the AA. The brief was for the footage to look like it was from the point-of-view of a driver, driving in real situations on public roads encountering real-life traffic hazards in a variety of driving siuations (high streets, car parks, motorways etc), in order to evaluate and train drivers to recognize these hazards. We could of course have filmed with a 360˚ camera inside a real car with a real driver but that would have presented several problems such as seeing the driver's hands, body and legs in shot which was not desirable, as well as the closeness of the driver to the camera rig would have presented some rather extreme stitching challenges which would negatively impact the exterior 360 view which was really the focus of the whole project. In addition exposing adequately for the dark car interior compared to the bright outside would have been challenging again impacting the overall look and believability of the end product.
Instead I decided it would give us more freedom to shoot a 360˚ plate of the view from the car windows by positioning a 360˚ camera on the front bonnet of a car, this could then be composited together with a 360˚ plate of the interior of the car, which was essentially a still image with the windows cut out so you could see through them to the separate layer below of the bonnet-mounted 360˚ plate footage. This allowed us to adequately expose separately for the interior and exterior and it made the many hours of driving to capture the real-world footage much simpler than mounting a 360˚ camera to a helmet on the driver which (would've been a bit of a squeeze and very uncomfortable in the confined space of a car interior!).
A big part of the brief was also the importance of the side mirrors and rear view mirror in hazard perception evaluation and training, so these views had to be created by placing individual GoPro cameras on each side mirror and on the rear of the car to mimic the view of a rearview mirror. This GoPro footage was then synced with the main 360˚ capture footage using a clapper board and then composited into position on each relevant mirror in the final footage. The effect was very convincing and useful to the overall believability of the footage. The final cherry-on-the-cake was an animation of the turning of the steering wheel as the car navigated turns, which our visual effects artist Nic Durber performed perfectly in sync with the onscreen action/movement performed by the car. This bespoke approach was first tested out on a proof-of-concept test which allowed us to refine our approach and tweak the techniques we used.
Project Tags
Companies
The AA
- Non Creative Industries