Last week, Microsoft became the first major technology company to offer a major presentation in virtual reality. Despite many moving parts, the company managed to deliver a seamless, compelling presentation that could indicate the future of this type of marketing communication.
Over the past twenty years, the ‘technological keyword’ of hurried PowerPoint presentations in front of small groups has shifted to large multimedia productions that form the cornerstone of many playbooks for marketing, often concluding with large announcements and product launches.
Last week, Microsoft took the next step toward a possible future of the technology lead when they delivered the opening presentation at the Ignite 2021 Developer Conference in full virtual reality.
While not the first company to deliver a virtual reality offering, Microsoft – with its market capitalization of $ 1.73 billion – is certainly the largest company that can do so. And its presentation was perhaps the most ambitious and polished we have ever seen, with bespoke scenes that combined penetrating and traditional media. The complexity of the performance adds to the fact that the main reason is designed to watch for a wider audience both in VR and via a non-immersive live stream.
If you want to see the whole thing, you can watch a recording here. Below we give an overview of how it all came down to the VR perspective.
A story in Altspace
Microsoft has hosted the entire Ignite keynote address Altspace, the social VR platform the company acquired in 2017. Because it is Microsoft’s own product, the company had the space for a much more unique production than would be possible in a standard solution.
Anyone, anywhere in the world, with access to Altspace could join the presentation and get a front seat for the main reason. The setup was as you would expect: a seating area for the audience and a stage to frame the action. And while hundreds of users attended the event in virtual reality, in many cases they were divided into about 25 audience members. So while the audience was divided between many rooms, they all saw exactly the same presentation unfold at the same time.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella launches video address
To be clear, the Microsoft Ignite 2021 virtual reality key was not just an experiment for the company. It was a big enough opportunity that was expected to be seen by enough people to justify Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as keynote speaker, setting out the company’s vision for the future of enterprise computers.
And while they did not go so far as to bring Nadella herself into virtual reality (his video segment was played on a large movie-like screen), Nadella was the first to unveil Microsoft Mesh, which the company hopes will deepen computers and collaboration, and create a future where virtual reality events – such as the key Ignite 2021 – are commonplace.
Alex Kipman on stage ‘Personal’
While the virtual reality audience of the main speech was represented by cartoon-ish Altspace avatars, HoloLens visionary Alex Kipman was shown on stage in a vivid performance with a HoloLens 2 headset. Around him was a stage designed to look like a coral reef, with the surrounding scenery transformed to make it look like the whole stage was under water.
From a technical standpoint, it appears that Kipman’s visual representation was achieved with a green screen recording that was shown to the audience as a ‘billboard’ texture that revolves around facing each viewer, regardless of their position.
On closer inspection, this technique would have looked very fake in VR, but they kept Kipman smart only far enough away from the audience that the flatness of his being was not really noticeable. Doing it this way also means that capturing can be done with commodity hardware and software, while also maintaining a high level of visual fidelity and capturing all elements of Kipman’s real ways.
While Kipman was talking, the area above and around him slowly filled with schools of fish and even a large whale shark gliding smoothly above him as he made his presentation. At one point, the audience saw a pop-up that allowed them to pick a fish that would swim to the stage and join the other fish around them. This was the first interactive element of the VR main reason, but more interesting interaction would still come (more on this later).
As Kipman spoke, a large screen behind him highlighted his points with both photos and video images, and occasionally he would fade to give a video portion of the presentation in the center.