McENROE vs McENROE
Artificial Intelligence | Robotics | Augmented Reality | Virtual Production | Unreal Engine | MoCap | Realtime | AR | Game Dev |Technical Direction
Production Company: Unit 9
Agency: FCB NY
Awards:
Gold Cannes Lion (2)
Silver Cannes Lion
Bronze Cannes Lion (2)
Cleo (14)
Emmy for Digital Innovations
Emmy for Sports
...
"This could be the future of sports."
- Sports Illustrated
The Ghost was brought in to help Unit 9 and Michelob Ultra, create the world's first-ever tennis match featuring a real-life player facing off against their (much) younger self. What ensued was a wild match of holograms, robots, Artificial Intelligence, fast-flying projectiles, a whole lot of attitude.
Five virtual avatars of John McEnroe from pivotal points in his career were created, and each one was designed to capture every aspect of the tennis legend's unique style and movements.
To create these perfect McEnroe avatars (McEntars!), The Ghost developed a pipeline that seamlessly integrated motion capture, full-body scanning, Unreal Engine MetaHuman technology, historical hitting heat-maps, and much more. The result was an avatar so realistic we were all terrified to tell it when the ball was out.
An AI analyzed hours of footage from John's career, recording hundreds of shots, strokes, and movements. Our motion-capture team recorded 308 shots with over 259 loops and blends to capture his footwork, shot-making, and volleying skills to the finest detail.
To give our smoke-projected McEnroe hologram his hitting power, we used a state-of-the-art robot ball launcher system as well as ball return robots. As the avatar swings, a new ball is fired from the ball cannon and then flies through a smokescreen at a precise point in space to make it appear from the avatar's racket position.
But as anyone familiar with John McEnroe will tell you, his tennis skills were only half of his brand. To bring his outlandish attitude to life -- and then turn it against modern-day McEnroe himself -- we recorded hundreds of key phrases, shouts, taunts, and of course insults -- to bring a new level of excitement to this unique match.
This project was a true labor of love, requiring a high level of innovation, collaboration, and alert vigilance for high velocity flying tennis balls.