OUR
COMPANY

CieAR is a developer and producer of customized interactive and immersive content that takes storytelling to a new level, completely changing the cinematic experience. Bring your body along!

CieAR offers unprecedented interactivity, delivering a unique interactive AR film experience to visitors of any age – with a smartphone, tablet or video glasses –who interact in real space and time with life-size 3D virtual characters.

The CieAR team can offer turnkey or customized content and stories in all genres – action, adventure, drama, comedy, historical, suspense, horror, fantasy, etc.- for one player or in multiplayer mode.

THE PLATFORM

CieAR has developed an augmented reality interactive experience that allows users, equipped with a smart phone, a tablet or AR glasses, to interact freely in real space with life size 3D virtual characters within an elaborate scenario and in an extended play space or even across several locations.

The CieAR platform offers the user a 360 degree incremental mobile experience with unmatched freedom and stability. Virtual 3D elements are perfectly localized and superimposed on the real space and users can move around them and interact as they please.

Watch the video >

THE EXPERIENCE

Imagine: The experience invites us to make a journey through the city of Shawinigan and a journey through time to relive in a few hours and in a sequence of interactive scenes, a story of love, death, ghosts and technology. The game is freely inspired by the Castle of the Carpathians, a novel by Jules Verne. The experience revisits several genres: the gothic novel, the historic, science fiction, detective, adventure and horror genres.

multiple Applications

CieAR can design and produce interactive personalized experiences in augmented reality on a small scale (a single scene, with one or two characters in one location) or on a large scale (several scenes with several characters across multiple venues). The experience is ideal for film companies, entertainment and event organizers, historic and cultural sites, museums, private companies and festivals and amusement parks looking to be more competitive in their market.

THE
STORYLINE

The Shawinigan experience takes place at the end of the 19th century when science and spiritism met in the theory of electromagnetism. The aesthetic privilege in all dimensions of the experience participates in what is now called steampunk or retrofuturism. It revisits the iconography, the materials, the forms and the palette of the technologies of the steam and the electricity, characters, costumes, accessories and sets, as well as the atmosphere of Gothic films.

the latest devices

The mobile device (phone, tablet or video glasses) is thus presented as a “spectroscope” which, when sufficiently “magnetized”, allows users to see the haunted places, the ghosts and the aura of objects, to resuscitate the past and even interact within scenes. On the screen, the “magnetic fluid”, the auras, the magnetic fields, the accumulated energy are represented by bluish electrical shapes. The instruments’ circular gauge, timeline, line of sight, etc. evoke the copper appliances of the time.

The VENUES

During the experience, the player is invited to move around the City and explore different real venues including: The Church, Cemetery, Asylum, and the Manor.

The INTERFACE

To maximize the experience of augmented reality and promote freedom of movement, the CieAR platform favors a naturalized interface, with a clear field of vision and simplified and intuitive game mechanics.

The information, textual or graphic, is limited, it is kept at the periphery of the field of vision and inscribed as close as possible to the real objects.

Interactivity is not based on any “click”, but essentially on the position of the user and the device: the choices are made and the actions are triggered when the user approaches the object looks at it for a few seconds or when he/she leans his/her head or pivots the device left or right (like a steering wheel), to attract or repel some virtual object or character.

CHARACTERS

All of our virtual characters are initially played by real actors in a motion capture studio, using real costumes, hair and makeup. This allows CieAR experiences to approach interactivity with film-like production processes.

The Psychic Medium

Oberlin Pfleumeur – The scientist

Jeanne – The troubled soul

The Barron

William Anderson

Brucesi – the Priest

La Stilla

All of our virtual characters are initially played by real actors in a motion capture studio, using real costumes, hair and makeup. This allows CieAR experiences to approach interactivity with film-like production processes.

Integration
& SKILL-SET

To perfectly integrate interactive scenes with life size 3D virtual characters in real space, the CieAR platform uniquely integrates a variety of aesthetic and technical know-how from cinema, video games and augmented reality:

• interactive scripting (characters, stakes, history narrative structure, scenes)
• game design (gameplay, game mechanics, etc.)
• artistic direction
• graphic interface design
• casting
• makeup, hairstyle, costumes
• 3D scanning and photogrammetry
• directing and directing actors
• motion capture and performance
• selection of natural markers, accessories and real decor elements

• 3D modeling of characters, accessories and virtual sets
• locating real places
• Large-scale 3D scans of real places by LIDAR
• sound design and musical composition
• programming
• geolocation
• artificial vision
• movement tracking
• artificial intelligence
• Integration of elements in Unity and Vuforia
• Adaptation for mobile platforms and augmented reality goggles

PROCESS +TECHNOLOGY

We capture an actor’s expression using facial motion capture during the voiceover process. This gives our characters life-like expression and perfectly synchronized audio with fantastic realism.

Here we see Mark-Antony Kupra performing as the Barron, the priest, and the mayor for facial motion capture and voiceover.

SEE SOME OF OUR PROCESS FOR YOURSELF:

Watch the video >

Here we see part of the photogrammetry process of digitzing our characters. First a series of pictures are taken with several regular cameras, then artists employ triangulation and multidimensional scaling techniques to generate a 3D model with photo-accurate textures, shading, and depth.

Take a moment to meet our team of pros: HERE

The CieAR platform and experience were developed with the support of:

• The Canada Media Fund
• CDRIN
• Laval University

The deployment of City of Ghosts in Shawinigan is made possible by the valuable support of:

• The City of Shawinigan
• Shawinigan Culture
• Office de Tourisme, Foires et Congrès de Shawinigan
• DigiHub

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OUR COMPANY