World’s First Press Conference with a Celebrity in Metaverse

client

Disney+ Hotstar

solution

Web & VR Metaverse Platform

In Collaboration with Disney+Hotstar, we created India’s first Metaverse experience owing to the launch of Ajay Devgn’s OTT debut- Rudra, a psychological crime thriller based on the British series Luther. Although there was a sense of predictability for the hardcore Luther fans, heaps of details including character-building, environment-building, crime, and clues were modified to make it more relatable to the Indian audience. Since it was the year’s biggest release featuring Ajay Devgn, Hotstar wanted to make it lofty. The Metaverse experience was a high-profile initiative that garnered attention from industry leaders and top media outlets. The initiative was vividly appreciated by Karan Kundra and Raghav Juyal who experienced the VR-based Metaverse episode.

featured in

cnn news 18, india today, pinkvilla & more

the most trending metaverse ever created

4x awards in various categories

Real-time Engagement

The big idea was to devise an experience that encompasses real-time media engagement with the cast virtually which had never been done before.

A live Press Conference between Ajay Devgn and Media representatives was organized in the Metaverse.

The Experience

The project was divided into three parts for an experience that was as thrilling as Rudra. Stepping inside the World of Rudra, the users could find themselves in the Experience Zone where they could enjoy various interactions like playing the music tracks of Rudra, reading the Criminal history, scanning through the intensity of the crime, playing the trailer, and revel Rudra’s BTS content. Then the users moved through an Alley, which was inspired by the World of Rudra, to reach the Interrogation Room. Volumetric music was being played in the alley to build a sense of suspense in the user’s mind. The live press conference between the avatars of Ajay Devgn and the Journalists was conducted in the Interrogation Room which persisted for 3 hours.

Immersive Environment

The Web & VR version of the Metaverse platform was conspicuously designed with various touchpoints for the audience to explore the World of Rudra.

To put forward a more realistic look and feel, every single element of Rudra’s main set was replicated in the 3D environment.

The high point was that the set of Rudra was in a circular format which was best suited for the VR experience, by virtue of the 10 ft area limitation that exists in the Six Degrees of Freedom. Measurements of the physical set of Rudra were done followed by multiple checks to ensure that the user could comfortably enjoy the interactions.

Once these calibrations were nailed down, we dashed ahead with the set development in Metaverse.

Life - like Avatar

A photorealistic 3D avatar of Ajay Devgn was made along with the avatars of the Media Representatives. Countless hours of research were spent on character development, especially to ace Ajay Devgn’s avatar. We also had to ensure a perfect lip-sync ratio and body movement similitude of the avatars to accentuate the veracity.

Diving into the Technical Aspect

Since Metaverse was in the infant stage, it lacked the required solid architecture and framework, so we had to custom-build everything. For patching the audio files we made use of our serviceV-Conference which provided high-fidelity audio. A large-scale infrastructure was made for console planning where console setups were done in multiple locations to streamline the user experience making it absolutely seamless. The real-time body movements were being handled on our servers, allowing the users to freely move and explore the verse. Our plan outline included leveraging VR to connect people from different locations with their avatars in Metaverse while ensuring high voice fidelity transfer and body movement resemblance in real-time to make it ultra-realistic in nature

The upshot

Rudra in the Metaverse captured massive media attention and social media outreach. Journalists from CNN News 18, India Today, NDTV, MissMalini Entertainment, PinkVilla, A Good Creator Co. & Mad Over Marketing enthusiastically covered and appreciated the initiative. The experience also won various industry recognitions namely the FuTech Award for Best Use of AR/VR, Marketers’ Excellence Award for Best Use of VR, Foxglove Award for Best Online Promotion in both Regional and National categories, WOW Awards Asia for Innovation in Interactive Technology, and India DG+ Award for Media & Entertainment. Overall, the Rudra Metaverse experience was a groundbreaking initiative that showcased the potential of Metaverse in the world of entertainment. It provided an exciting and immersive experience for the audience, making it a must-see event for fans of the Rudra TV series.