Microsoft and Legendary Entertainment want to make it possible for people to interact with their favorite movie characters and stage battles between humans and orcs or Jaegers and Kaijus anywhere.
In a blog post Tuesday morning, Kudo Tsunoda, corporate vice president of next gen experiences for Windows and Devices Group, wrote that the partnership uses Microsoft HoloLens and has the potential to take movies beyond 3D, allowing characters from Legendary movies like Warcraft and Pacific Rim jump off the screen, and possibly right onto people’s desks.
“Mixed reality movies have the potential to be the compelling, personalized content that appeals to social media audiences,” Tsunoda wrote.
Microsoft released a video detailing its partnership with Legendary as part of the blog post.
As part of Legendary’s Warcraft film, Microsoft and Legendary teams created a 360 degree holographic video capture studio to record actors and real objects and turn them into holograms. The end result is “something like video but viewable from any angle, at any moment of recording,” Tsunoda wrote. CG-created characters can also be projected as holograms using 3D data.
Developers can use HoloLens apps like Actiongram to place characters in everyday environments and make and share online videos.
“For me, the excitement of working with HoloLens is seeing how it redefines the entertainment canvas, we are always looking to find where those invisible boundaries between entertainment and audience are being broken down,” Barnaby Legg, vice president of theatrical strategy for Legendary, said in the video.
Microsoft is expanding its HoloLens program, allowing all developers and business customers in the U.S. and Canada to purchase up to five of the blended reality devices. Microsoft also added new features to HoloLens as part of last week’s Windows 10 Anniversary Update, which celebrates a year since the operating system was released.
The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant is also launching the HoloLens Commercial Suite, which combines security and device management features with the existing developer hardware.
Data encryption, private network connection via HoloLens, and private app stores for businesses are some of the new features included in the Commercial Suite.
