Behind the Magic with Extended Reality Group: Red Bull Rampage 20th Anniversary Broadcast
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During the recent 20th anniversary edition of the planet’s greatest mountain biking event, viewers around the world witnessed a death-defying spectacle that raised the bar for cycling performance to new heights. The riveting broadcast owes much to the world-class athletes who brought their “A games” to Virgin, Utah’s, iconic desert landscape — and to Red Bull Media House’s exceptional team.
The Oct. 15 broadcast event was yet another All-Star effort, reuniting Red Bull’s executives with longstanding collaborators from XR Media Group (XRMG), Creative Technology, and Phase One Geospatial, to name but a few. For the first time ever, Extended Reality Group (ERG) also joined the fun… specifically to harness the superpowers of Pixotope (which is built on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine platform) for several key virtual additions used throughout the broadcast, and in the award-winning Augmented Reality (AR) App.
“We were thrilled to earn the chance to contribute to this world-renowned project, thanks to our team’s growing expertise creating mixed-reality content,” explained ERG Co-Founder Evan Glantz. “XRMG’s Ryan Whitehead, Joe Robbins, and Lance Van Nostrand have pushed Rampage’s virtual production into the stratosphere. It was an honor to join them, and all the athletes and fans, for this historic production.”
Virtual Rider Lines
Thanks to XRMG’s pioneering production design, prior to any rider proceeding down the mountain, viewers virtually fly-over the course, with an animated layer indicating trajectory and identifying hotspots for big tricks. For ERG, its project scope began with creating these rider-line cinematics — an effort involving vast amounts of technology, planning, and coordination.
Rampage 2021’s picturesque setting near Zion National Park was the home for two previous editions; because of that, ERG was able to begin working with a previous scan of the mountain from 2016. To refresh that data, Phase One Geospatial conducted new scans via drone, which was then processed by XRMG using Reality Capture, ensuring ERG’s artists and all parties had an up-to-date and incredibly high-resolution model of the terrain.
“While we were importing and optimizing the mountain terrain in Pixotope, the riders were out on the mountain choosing, cutting, and building their respective lines,” said ERG Co-Founder Zack Kingdon. “Red Bull’s liaison Aaron Whitley used physical maps to identify each point on each rider’s line very precisely, and then brought those to us and coached us while we built the fly-overs. On several occasions the riders were so excited that they chimed in to help refine their own lines.”
On Oct. 12, the second day of set-up, the region experienced a powerful thunderstorm, making the mountain inaccessible. ERG made the most of the situation with a makeshift hub in their hotel. Since neither riders nor digging crews were allowed on the mountain, ERG’s hub became rider-line central, allowing the riders to communicate directly with the Pixotope tech artists.
“This collaboration really leveled up the cinematic quality of each animation, highlighting things only the rider could convey about their lines, the trajectory of each jump, and the intricacy of each trick,” said ERG’s Co-Founder Keith Anderson. “Simulating the entire run with an Xbox controller not only enhanced the broadcast, it also added a valuable new rider experience to an event well known for constant progression and evolution.”
Delivering four custom Pixotope control panels and live broadcast AR graphics, ERG’s team also used tools within Pixotope to develop a feature measurement tool, allowing them to estimate jump distances and drop heights with unprecedented accuracy.
Also delivering 15 virtual rider lines with particle simulations in 4K resolution for use in the broadcast, ERG’s team exported the rider-line data to a format compatible with Unity for integration into Red Bull’s mobile AR App. The App allows fans at home to explore the mountain and compare different routes down the mountain in augmented reality.
Much More For the Show
Another fun aspect of the production design involving ERG was in designing a virtual extension of the hosts’ set. Once again, this artistry was performed using Pixotope augmented with camera-tracking data courtesy of Stype.
Introduced as the Virtual Rampage Powered by Kia, co-host Selema Masekela cited this content as the best new thing at Rampage 2021. “This is basically Rampage inside of a Fortnite bodysuit that will allow you, the viewers at home, to experience Rampage almost as if you are standing on the mountain itself.”
ERG’s credits also include Co-Founder Patrick Beery, Unreal Engine and Pixotope Tech Artist Jason Briney, and Producer Kristin Carey. Complete project credits are available upon request.
To learn more about Red Bull Rampage, please visit https://www.redbull.com/us-en/events/rampage.
