Bringing the world of Pharos to life

Every character in Pharos was performed by Childish Gambino himself.

Using Kinect sensors and iPi Studio, we captured performances from Childish Gambino and dancer Eka Take, then used the motion-capture data to drive character rigs in Unity. In total, we created more than 90 unique animation sequences for use across both the live concert and the VR experience.

Hand-animating seven characters for a 60-minute production would have been impractical within the project’s timescale. By adopting a motion-capture workflow, we dramatically accelerated production, reducing an estimated six months of animation work to just two while preserving the authenticity of each performance.

Here’s how we did it:

Bringing Childish Gambino into the world of Pharos

One of the most memorable moments in Pharos VR comes in the final scene, where fans find themselves face to face with a holographic Childish Gambino performing “Stand Tall.” The intimate encounter creates a striking sense of presence, bringing the experience to a powerful close.

The performance was captured as 4D volumetric video with Microsoft Kinect and Mimesys Studio. We used the resulting RGB video and point cloud depth data to create the hologram sequence, bringing Childish Gambino’s living presence into Pharos VR.

Stepping into a world-first experience

If you were passing through California’s Joshua Tree National Park between 2–4 September 2016, you’d have been forgiven for thinking something had landed in the desert. The Pharos three-day concert event launching Childish Gambino’s Awaken My Love! was a large-scale live experience unlike anything before it – transforming a projection dome into an immersive performance space where a 60-minute animated story unfolded in 360° around the audience.

Powered by Unity, Pharos Live shared the same assets, visual language and real-time pipeline as Pharos VR – turning the dome into a giant shared virtual world that thousands of fans could step into.