Bryson Tiller’s “Trapsoul World Series” immersive livestream
Extended Reality
Music
Partners
Singer/songwriter Bryson Tiller’s “Trapsoul World Series,” an immersive, otherworldly live-streamed concert experience, accentuated the artist’s unique musical vibe for fans around the world watching at home. In this case study you will learn how Xite Labs utilised the Disguise xR workflow powered by a GX 2C media server and RX real-time rendering platform, to bring to life a myriad of virtual worlds in Unreal Engine and Notch that immersed Tiller’s performance in 3D graphics.
60
hours recording additional cinematic outputs post-filming
1
week of DMX timecode lighting programming
400+
hours x9 Unreal Engine artists across 10 weeks
200+
hours x2 Notch artists
At a glance
The concert presented Tiller in a series of six different worlds linked by a narrative flowing through the songs. Xite Labs were responsible for the stunning xR content for 14 different songs performed in four virtual ‘worlds’ with distinct appearances and themes.
These included a virtual lounge that fell away to reveal a fractal world of galaxies, nebulas and spaceships, a time theme with a mountain desert landscape and a flight through a moonlit sky, guerrilla warfare transforming into a neon jungle as well as stark hallways with bold, flat lighting, colour-changing walls and silhouettes. Throughout, Tiller appeared to perform on a moving platform, which served as the anchor point transporting him from one otherworldly environment to another.
“Bryson was really interested in Unreal Engine and was studying game design while continuing his music career,” explains Creative Director for Xite Labs, Vello Virkhaus. “Since he knew the technology, he was eager to create a concert experience like this,seamlessly taking him from one complex world to another
The challenge
Los Angeles-based Xite Labs were tasked with one of their longest and most complex real-time projects for singer/songwriter Bryson Tiller's “Trapsoul World Series” immersive livestream. The livestream aimed to present Tiller in a series of six different worlds linked by a narrative flowing through the songs. Xite Labs were tasked with providing stunning xR content for 14 different songs performed in four virtual ‘worlds’ - each with distinct appearances and themes.
The solution
The virtual worlds included a virtual lounge that fell away to reveal a fractal world of galaxies, nebulas and spaceships, a time theme with a mountain desert landscape and a flight through a moonlit sky, guerrilla warfare transforming into a neon jungle as well as stark hallways with bold, flat lighting, colour-changing walls and silhouettes. Throughout, Tiller appeared to perform on a moving platform, which served as the anchor point transporting him from one otherworldly environment to another.
Xite used its proven in-house workflow featuring a Disguise GX 2C as the primary xR controller, while running scenes in Unreal Engine on Disguise RX via RenderStream. Front-plate elements were created in Notch to further link Tiller into each of the unique worlds.
I have not seen anything done in xR that was quite as diverse and complicated as this. And the fact that it was shot on our smaller volume in such a short timeframe still blows my mind!
Creative Director at Xite Labs
Results
The longest and most complex real-time project ever completed by Xite was a resounding hit. “The worlds successfully layered physical lighting with front and back-plate digital elements in a seamless fashion, creating a truly immersive effect and making Bryson appear as if he was actually there in the otherworldly environments”, Virkhaus says. “The fans absolutely loved the worlds and transitions and raved about them in the portal chat thread while the PPV show aired
Success
“From the top-down the livestream concert went exceedingly well and got great feedback,” says Russell. “Bryson understood the technology and intuitively knew where to be on the stage and how to be in and out of the lighting.” “On the production level, it was the first time Director Mike Carson and DP Russ Fraser had done xR. With film and music video people coming into our world, it was a very challenging job from a production standpoint because we were basically teaching them the xR workflow on the job. But once they started putting the pieces together they realised its value."