‘World-first’ MR immersive butterfly trail to be launched

Immersive experience studio Pixel Artworks, has created The Butterfly Trail, a mixed reality experience with world-first technology features, that is due to launch on 5 September at Outernet London.

The Butterfly Trail will guide visitors through explorer Professor Peter Pelegrin’s Botanical Workshop and into his Glass House, where they can interact with the experience without the need for a special device, headset or downloaded mobile app – just the browser on their smartphone.

Among the attraction’s world-first mixed reality moments is a part of an interactive ‘Metamorphosis Machine’ experience which starts with a skills-based slingshot game, built in partnership with production studio Aircards on 8th Wall’s WebAR platform. The experience launches from within Outernet’s 25K native resolution Now Building, which features 2,100sq metres of wrap-around LED screens.

The audience is immersed in a spectacular mix of rendered and real-time animated content and after releasing magical AR butterflies from their chrysalises, the audience can activate the Metamorphosis Machine with their smartphone, triggering real-time animations on the machine displayed on the screens. Pixel Artworks created the rendered and real-time Unreal animations as well as the first-of-its-kind communications interface between Unreal and the 8th Wall AR experience, developed in partnership with Aircards.

A second feature developed by Aircards is a new WebAR hand-tracking feature which enables the audience to hold a magical butterfly in the palm of their hand or on their finger. With on-device image and video capture of the hand-holding moment, the audience can download and share their experience online or direct to their camera roll.

Professor Pelegrin’s Botanical Workshop and The Glass House spaces both feature a 32-channel spatial audio mix which was created in partnership with Gramercy Park Studios. This is the most complex spatial mix yet to be deployed at Outernet and provides an intriguing, complementary soundscape for the visual experience.

Pixel Artworks also collaborated with Aircards to deploy Metalitix, a spatial analytics platform that measures visitor interactions in both the virtual and physical environment. The results gathered will help develop an understanding of how people engage with the experience and will influence the future of how immersive experiences are created.

Tom Burch, managing director at Pixel Artworks, said: “It’s wondrous to think you can step into nature in the heart of London and hold butterflies in your hand. Launching The Butterfly Trail at Outernet, one of the UK’s most visited attractions, with such innovative experiential technology helps us break creative boundaries with audiences looking for new, exciting immersive experiences.”

Lewis Collins, chief commercial officer at Aircards, added:: “Our own brand-new analytics platform, Metalitix, enables us to analyse visitor interaction in the virtual world like never before. By mapping those virtual interactions against the real-world location, we can build a truly cutting-edge visualisation of an experience that is both virtual and physical.”