Dawn of an Old Age
Technologies used: C++, UE4, OpenCV, Android, Go
Dawn of an Old Age was a 6-month collaboration with my wife, dance choreographer Hope Goldman. Our 3rd work together, we explore ideas of transcending physical space to create visually immersive worlds for the performers to move within.
Everything you see was performed live for audiences.
I was responsible for developing and integrating the movement tracking technologies, the performance timing & control software, and designing the virtual sets and interactions.
You can watch the full piece on Youtube.
The markerless movement tracking system I developed for Dawn of an Old Age allowed us to have accurate, low-latency interactions that were flexible enough to work in any venue.
I built custom integrations for a 360-degree video camera, a thermal cameras, an Android phone, network switches, a video game controller, a projector, and a WIFI hotspot. These devices also needed fail-safes to ensure that an inevitable technical hiccup didn’t derail the weekend’s live performances.
The 3rd party C++ graphics engine required extensive modification to integrate the low-latency devices and visuals, as well as provide a framework for blending the performer into the virtual world. Within 2 months, I was up to speed on Unreal Engine’s source code and began making progress towards the goal.
Wearing many hats is something I pride myself in. From writing an Android app that streams low-latency IMU sensor data, to hacking on a Go RTMP server that streamed a live 360 video feed into the visuals, I’m not shy about taking technical ownership and ensuring that all the pieces work together.
Bringing it all together
Keeping the project’s high-level vision in focus while still working on the low-level technical minutiae is a skill I’ve honed over my career and was fundamental to this project’s success. Knowing when to spend energy on mission-critical components and when/where to cut corners ensured that deadlines were hit while still shipping excellent work.