Broadcasting
Three of the four biggest broadcasters in Germany are using Shark 3D
Shark 3D sets new standards in high end broadcasting productions.From efficient high-quality data-driven on-air graphics up to highly interactive virtual studio productions, the power of Shark 3D lifts your broadcasting productions to a new level of quality, performance and interactivity. Finally imagination is the limit.
Areas of application
Shark 3D is successfully used for high-quality productions in the areas:
- News.
- Magazines.
- Entertainment shows.
- Sports.
- Quiz shows.
- And many more.
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Next generation on-air graphics
You can use simple tickers fed by external data sources, 3d text, up to simple or complex 3d geometry, combined both with simple and advanced animation and blending techniques. This all can be controlled by powerful scripting if necessary.All these features can be powered by the Shark 3D renderer, which internally is not only based totally on 3d technology, but uses various very advanced rendering techniques for detailed high-quality effects at high performance in HD. See the Shark 3D renderer for technical information about the renderer.
High-quality virtual studio
The Shark 3D renderer powers highly realistic virtual sets including many details based on ulti-high polygon counts, and sophisticated lighting and shadowing techniques.Virtual sets can be highly interactive virtual worlds as in high-end computer games. You can use real-time physics simulation, scripts and external controls to breathe life into your virtual sets.
Technical features
Technical features include:
- Multiple video-in channels.
- Alpha output.
- Full-screen antialiasing.
- HD.
- Real-time 3d rendering.
- High-quality TrueType Unicode text rendering.
- 3d text: Extruded 3d meshes including bevels and mapping coordinates from TrueType Unicode text.
- Various animation types, including object movements, scrolling, geometry animations, skeleton animations, and bitmap sequences.
- Animated high-quality virtual characters.
- Various advanced transparency and blending effects.
- Various advanced particle effects.
- Flexible manual external control. For example controlling animation sequences.
- Live data (e.g. text) from external sources, for example from TCP or from databases. This can be also used, for example, to display live news or live SMS messages.
- Powerful scripting. With scripting it is easily possible, for example, to implement games with high-score management.
- Powerful C++ plugin interfaces.
For more technical details see the Shark 3D section.
Case study: ProSiebenSat.1 and VR3
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Germany’s largest and most successful television corporation ProSiebenSat.1 uses Shark 3D in its Berlin studio facilities together with the Vector virtual studio system of VR3.
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For ProSiebenSat.1, key drivers for choosing Shark 3D have been:
- The ability to get high end graphical performance, such as rendering performance and shader effects.
- Shark 3D's leveraging of the latest GPU hardware.
- Shark 3D's build-in networking support for synchronizing multiple renderers running in parallel.
- The ability to tightly integrate Shark 3D with the GUI tools of VR3 and also into the existing workflow at ProSiebenSat.1. Tasks such as animation control, administration of the Shark 3D shader system and design of the virtual setup are optimally fit to the needs of the customer.
- The extreme modularity and extendability of the Shark 3D platform.
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Case study: Blue Space
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Blue Space uses Shark 3D for interactive and classical virtual studio productions.
In the broadcasting industry, quick and reliable production cycles are essential. The component assembling and scripting features make it possible for Blue Space to create new interactive content in a very short time. This encompasses all game logic including status displays and map views. The only work Blue Space had to do in C++ were small custom components for camera tracking, proprietary input devices and proprietary video-in hardware.
A central technical aspect is to be sure to always keep 50 fps without compromising the artwork complexity. This includes high-quality video-in mapped on textures in real-time. The performance of the Shark 3D renderer makes this possible.
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An important feature is build-in networking support. Broadcast viewers and the participants in the studio need different views of the same virtual world. To achieve this each view is rendered on a different computer. On the other hand, the need for networking must not lengthen production times. The build-in networking support of Shark 3D enables Blue Space to keep short production cycles. The complex low-level tasks of network updates and state synchronization is done automatically by the engine. For controlling the applications, Blue Space writes custom applications and custom user interfaces in Java and Visual Basic that communicate with the running engine over TCP. On engine-side, a standard Shark 3D component manages command parsing and dispatching.
Blue Space uses Shark 3D both on Windows and Linux. One reason is that one of the proprietary broadcasting hardware Blue Space is using is available only for Linux. Another reason is that zero-failure is a critical need for live broadcasting productions, and the combination of Shark 3D and Linux provides a solid foundation for this.
