SACO Technologies and RealMotion together developed a process that would facilitate content mapping between their systems.
SACO Technologies was responsible for the design and supply of the carrier system that would seamlessly integrate the LED fixtures to the building’s exterior. In addition, the company detailed the wiring layout and worked with DCL to determine the best access and connection points across the façade to ease future maintenance requirements.
Plotting the most efficient wiring layout while reducing on-site waste was another major concern. To remedy this, SACO Technologies used proprietary parametric tools, which allowed the architectural team to mathematically design and implement layouts across the building’s surface based on project constraints. The toolset was used to broadcast an extrusion layout with the corrective angles, and then used to create drawing sets and ultimately a bill of quantities (BOQ) control module, allowing the company to document and make precise changes to the drawing sets.
Bringing the content to life
Float4 used two types of content with elements of motion design: generative content and sound-reactive content. The former is based on algorithms with constantly changing and randomized inputs, so the audience never sees the same design twice. Sound-reactive content was an obvious choice, given the music-heavy brand identity of the building itself; the technical elements programmed to display the content react to the music of the shows.
The Guitar Hotel Light Show is a unique spectacle that breathes new life into an iconic establishment.
RealMotion’s software was used to bind, manage, and generate the sound-responsive graphics. A specialized server to power content streams and interactive displays was installed to manage the hotel’s grand opening show on October 24, 2019, as well as all other future shows. Using a specialized integrated scheduling and automation control platform, the team developed a system to ingest Float4’s millions of content elements into the server.
The RealMotion platform was built for adaptability and future permutations (via its media effects composer), as well as reinvention by minimally altering its base ingredients to develop project-specific capabilities. Although the server is most suited for video formats of H264 (files encoded with H.264 compression, which is a popular format for high-definition videos), the teams decided against using the content type for efficiency purposes; if last-minute changes had to be made to the content before the show on a video format, it could take hours to render an updated version. Instead, they used image sequencing for choreographing the content; so, if changes need to be made at any given time, all that has to be done is remove a specific image sequence, and replace it with a new one, thus reducing render times. For this, the RealMotion team developed an image-sequencing add-on specifically for the server installed on-site. Nearly 25,000 images were created for a seven-minute show, which comes out to almost 60 frames per second (fps).
