Azzurra - Live motion capture setup
Azzurra is a character that A2A Life Company developed with the International Comic School of Milano and Reggio Emilia.
We developed a 3D interactive version with a 2D drawing look, to speak live to the public in FuturaExpo 2025 in Brescia.
The actresses wear a Rokoko Smartsuit, Smartgloves and Headcam.
The live 3D scene is streamed by Unreal Engine. We developed a video mixer setup so the performers could see and hear the public, and to switch the screen from the live performance and audio to recorded content, when actresses needed a break.
The 3D character was sculpted by Gruppo Alcuni, I made the rigging and created all the ARkit expressions to drive the face. I also created the Unreal Engine setup with the cartoon shaders.
For the cartoon style we tried 2 different approaches: with a postprocess material tracing the lines and with an inverted normals hulls. The latter provided the best visual quality.
Test of the whole setup: motion, expressions, shading, live acting. This test is in Blender.
Original 2D reference provided by the client.
Test inside Unreal Engine 5, with the final shaders and camera setup
The actress driving the character, behind the scenes.
The mixer setup, where we could stop the live performance and replace it with prerecorded videos, when needed.
The actress was able to look and hear the public and interact with them in realtime. She also had another small screen to check her performance as Azzurra character.
People interactive live in Futura Expo 2025