Upgrading the Xsens webinars in our virtual studio
Events and conferences have historically been how Xsens presents news, gather feedback from customers and share learnings that can help the community to excel in their projects.
Then Corona happened in early 2020 and we switched our events plans into digital events like webinars to replace the purpose that events had served for us. We had several webinar series in 2020, such as the #homecap webinars, the MTi application webinars and the Virtual Ergonomics Event.
We enjoyed great success with our webinars. The desire to elevate the professionalism of these productions combined with the fact that Xsens is a trusted technology provider to the media and entertainment industry inspired us to level up our webinar experience and create a virtual studio. We handpicked a selection of partners to make this virtual setup, a reality:
The brief: To create a virtual space suitable to host presentations from and feature 3D assets.
"When we visualize Xsens as a person, we have this go-to persona: Tony Stark, better known by his alter ego; Iron Man. He's into technology, sharing, he's easygoing, approachable – so that's where we started, this virtual studio should aesthetically be inspired by Tony Stark's studio. With that in mind, we considered the technology in the booth, the LED lighting, the idea of having a cabinet of suits and it helped kick-off and guide the design." - Remco Sikkema, Sr. MarCom Manager at Xsens.
To generate our virtual studio, we tapped into the creative power of Pixotope, the leading virtual production solution for live media production. We brought in the company’s expertise early in development to ensure an efficient setup, and Pixotope already runs seamlessly with our motion capture suits.
"Xsens needed a new tool to tell its story and we wanted to ensure the Xsens team could create a high production webinar experience without the need for a large film production team. With our Pixotope software used to generate the virtual studio, we assisted Xsens in finding the right creative and technical partners for the project. Xsens’ technology works out of the box with Pixotope, integrating motion capture live and direct," Hans Svilosen, CCO at The Future Group.
We worked with Myreze, one of the leading companies in the world to provide virtual sets for broadcasters, and the first to utilize the Unreal Engine for a television broadcast.
"Xsens is among the first companies in the world using a virtual set for webinars. Xsens team understands how to bring out the best in our team. Genuine good people and it was a thrill doing this together with them." - Jørgen Steinheim, President at Myreze.
We also tapped into the creative power of KBK Visuals, an experienced team of 3D/2D motion graphic designers that translates event-concept visually into a live show tailored to the event. Together with the team of KBK Visuals we implemented the setup in the Xsens office.
Xsens would like to say a big thank you to all of the creative partners involved in the project. We couldn’t have accomplished the virtual studio without Pixotope, KBK Visuals, Myreze and Mischa Imaging.
Examples
The first test was the virtual booth during the CES 2021 show. This different and new approach to planning a virtual setup presented some learnings, but we did it. The introduction of our platform with the virtual studio was a big success. Watch it here:
We plan to use this for future product introductions and we will experiment to learn which event formats fit the setup v.s what would be better off as a more typical webinar.
Want to see the booth in action? Check out our upcoming events and webinars