360° SPY MOVIE WITH
THE FUTURE AUTOMOBILE TECHNOLOGY
You can experience a vivid 360° VR content in an exciting spy movie scenario. The content contains autonomous vehicle technologies which will be implemented in the near future. The story is in first-person who is an agent abducted by his enemy. You can escape from the enemy by using Soul EV’s various autonomous capabilities. Most importantly, you can experience the content in 360° video and 4D simulator.
360° VR meets 4D Simulator
At CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2016 in Las Vegas, KIA planned to introduce an autonomous vehicle and its future technologies. Since the autonomous technologies are not yet popularized and implemented, it was a difficult task to provide a direct experience and intelligible explanation to attendees at the same time. So, we created an interactive content combined with 360° VR and 4D technologies to present future automobile technologies.
While attendees were watching 360° video with the Oculus Rift DK2, they could feel every VR movements through a 4D simulator. The visual and physical virtual reality experience provided attendees with the opportunity to be a part of this immersive content.
Dramatized Concept Film
Since the autonomous technologies are unfamiliar to people, we thought that the content should be more than a mere listing of technologies. In a natural manner, we suggested a dramatized spy movie concept film to show future autonomous driving technologies; autonomous valet parking, emergency stop system, highway autonomous driving and so forth.
First, we conceptualized the virtual Soul EV as a high-tech autonomous vehicle and created a story that our virtual character escapes from his enemy with the Soul EV. Afterwards, we added more details in the scenario with Soul EV performing a variety of its fully autonomous capabilities while engaging in a chase.
360° Car Chase Shooting
It was a big challenge to shoot a car chase scene with a 360° camera. Moreover, 2D shooting has to be done at the same time to show autonomous technologies. We proceeded with the shooting in 360°and 2D using a RC car camera, drone camera, Russian arm camera and other professional shooting equipments. One mistake could disrupt every camera used in the shooting, so we had to be extremely cautious. Since 360° and 2D were shot at the same time, the first person and the third person point of view videos were able to intersect with each other. As a result, it allowed attendees to experience autonomous vehicle technologies in three dimensions with several viewpoints from inside and outside of the vehicle.
Video Stitching & CG Composite
360° shooting requires more than eight cameras to cover all angles. Because of the nature of 360° shooting process, shooting equipment and crew members can not hide from the 360° camera. So we shot inside and outside of the vehicle separately with 360° cameras, and we also shot the vehicle at the same time with six cameras inside and nine cameras outside. Through the video stitching process, we combined inside and outside of the vehicle shooting footage and removed all rough boundary lines. In the end result, shooting equipment and crew members did not appear in the final footage even without any CG process. Additionally, we conducted color correction, 2D video insertions, along with the CG process to create an exciting spy movie-like 360° content.
In Sync with 4D Simulator
The completed video was provided through a HMD (Head Mount Display). While attendees were watching 360° video with a HMD, attendees could feel every VR movements through the 4D simulator at the same time. Through the customized program, HMD simultaneously interacted with the 4D simulator and it enlarged immersion of the content.
Great Buzz at CES 2016
At CES 2016, the biggest global consumer electronics and technology tradeshow, 3,700 corporations from 150 countries participated. Among various booths at the CES 2016, the KIA booth was one of the most popular with crowded booths where the Soul VR was located. At CES 2016, VR and the autonomous vehicle was a major issue. Strategically, we combined VR and the autonomous vehicle into one content and it successfully attracted attendees’ attention. Even though only 6 seats were available at once, 1,219 attendees experienced the Soul VR during during the four-day period of CES. Unfortunately many attendees couldn’t get a chance to experience the Soul VR because of the long wait. Some attendees, who experienced the Soul VR, were amazed by the special experience and expressed their excitement loudly.
Additional Viral Strategy
We have released the Soul VR trailer and main video on Kia’s official SNS platform (Facebook, Youtube) for those who didn’t have a chance to visit CES. Moreover, we created and distributed the Soul VR cardboards and app. Through this additional viral strategy, the Soul VR video hit 1.58 million views, 27,460 likes and 9,205 shares on Facebook.
