SPATIUM: Roomscale in Virtual Reality

The ambition was to design and deliver a world-first roomscale virtual reality and spatial audio experience inspired by a Philip Treacy creation, to showcase at the world’s premiere convergence festival, SXSW.

To achieve this, Roland Lane worked in partnership with creative production agency Inition. To enhance the experience, the collaboration also called upon the expertise of Mixed Immersion and Rhythm Section International.

After deciding to collaborate with Inition, director Roland Lane devised the concept of a fully immersive film split into parts, each featuring an iconic hat brought to life in a different way.

Spatium is the middle part of an intended trilogy. While the remaining two pieces are conceived to include physical models and object interaction, Spatium – the central segment – represents the breathing space between. In a way that only VR makes possible, structure and form are explored on a scale that escapes the bounds of the physical, creating a fantasy of light, sound and shadow.

Created as roomscale VR for the HTC Vive, Spatium comprises of four abstract scenes where Treacy’s original creation is rendered into a unique VR object that users can explore and interact with to move each scene on. When seen from the front, the hat appears flat – yet the more you explore, the more you discover an ornate and elaborate structure. When struck by light it appears to glow.

These attributes are given such scale as to create a fantasy building, the surfaces of which change as you navigate them. In VR the hat becomes architecture – where the limitations of the physical no longer apply, inspiring wonder.

In the sound and audio, Mixed Immersion took the music created by Hidden Spheres and used it to craft a soundtrack that fully envelops the visual world. The team combined and manipulated real-world acoustic samples with synthesised elements to define each space acoustically in VR – thus giving each an atmospheric, full 3D effect and bringing realism to the experience.

Directed by Roland Lane

VR Creative Direction: Alex Lambert & Louisa Bremner

VR Creative Development: Daniel Lambert & Angelina Aleksandrovich

Production Designers: Matthew Lambert, Andrew Mason, Lucio Cavallari

Technical Artist: Sam Thomson

3D Artists: Louisa Bremner & Nader Ebrahimi

3D Development: Grigor Todorov & Pedro Sousa

Unity Development: Chris Orphanides

Sound and Audio: Mixed Immersion

Original Music: Rhythm Section International & Hidden Spheres

Director of Delivery: A. Baris Gencer

Title Designer: Daniel Lambert

Producer: Chris McKeeman

Executive Producers: Olivia Lory Kay, Alex Lambert, Roland Lane, Adrian Leu

Publicity: Maira Hayat

Poster Creation: Digital Light Ltd