Interactive technology | Real time graphic generation | UX | Systems integration | Custom audio and video content
Background
Following the successful Air Max Day installation in Dubai, once again WeMake and HATTER asked for our assistance in their pitch to Nike for their next activation for the Dubai flagship store, this time the store was to be transformed to show the history and future of Nike footwear for a prestigious 50th anniversary celebration.
The challenge
The essence of the project was the concept of linking history and the future, making the future of Nike an experience the customer could truly be involved with. Once again tight timescales required an efficient design and approval process to ensure there was enough time to develop the complex software systems and physical technology needed.
The installation would allow customers to create a custom shoe at a level far beyond the everyday personalisation available at ‘Nike by You’, making this a quick and seamless experience by pushing the available graphic power of real time generative effects, requiring the latest hardware and efficient rendering.
The need for accuracy in the modelling of the base Nike products presented another considerable challenge, the shoe had to be 3D modelled along with a gallery of bespoke custom add-ons to allow customers to create their shoe of the future.
The brief also called for innovative futuristic display technologies to show off the results of the customisation during the process.
Once again there was a desire to have a personalised takeaway from the experience, as the results would be too unique and conceptual to be physically produced, users would be given a digital memento in the form of a 3D animated video.
The solution
FIX8 quickly hit upon using the brand new HYPERVSN SmartV fan displays to create the holographic 3D representations of the shoes as this new product allowed for a live video input, to complete the illusion of being conceptual shoes in storage, they were mounted in Perspex boxes, to resemble floating objects in the archive.
Once again, we settled on Notch as the foundation for creating real time generative motion graphics, but given complexities of the user interface, touch designer was used as the basis for building the customer facing personalisation system.
HATTER designed a beautiful futuristic space as the setting for Nike’s Department of Archives, and features such as an infinity floor and black gloss feel meant we had to cleverly engineer display mounting solutions and supporting led lighting systems to both compliment and be in keeping with the setting.
To enhance the visionary feel of the installation, FIX8Group specified a touch enabled 55 inch transparent OLED transparent screen as the main control interface for the customer facing UI.
For this activation, Nike wanted to give visitors a permanent keepsake, so the retrieval code for their shoe designs was printed on a personalised, black gloss, souvenir card, which could be scanned by a device to allow customers to retrieve their shoe design as a 3D animated video which could then be shared across digital formats and social media.
The system allowed for a seemingly infinite number of design combinations, with textures, colours, as well as add-ons and live video effects being able to be applied independently to 10 different parts of the shoes ensuring every outcome was truly unique.
In addition to being able to customise the ground-breaking footwear designs, we created a series of ‘bolt-on’ 3D models, which could be added to the shoe for the ultimate futuristic concept, these included hover rings, mechanical wings, a neon swoosh and even a whale tail.
The activation had to be in place for 6 weeks, so would need to be robust enough to withstand thousands of members of the public and had to be engineered from resilient components and have an intuitive, user-friendly UI.
All of this was made possible by using dual notch systems separately for playback and recording and using the very latest hardware and highly optimised rendering to allow visitors to experience and design with high end generative motion graphics in real time.
Conclusion
Within the first 3 weeks, thousands of users had generated their own designs, it has been a huge hit with customers to the delight of the client. The use of the latest and most powerful currently available graphics hardware ensured this was on the cutting edge of what’s possible.
We’re excited to be able to work on more projects of this nature, to take this experience and apply it to more pioneering activations for the future.
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