The city is 1000 ft wide, 80 ft tall. It was destroyed in 1818, in the Wahhabi War. This was first reveal of its restoration.
200 projectors were used, plus state-of-the-art light/laser show, & drone show.
Hundreds of performers took over the city during the show. Also a full-orchestra performed the score live.
Couple of the architectural scenes I was involved with. I was not a lead artists on this project. It was really inspiring & humbling to work with such high-caliber colleagues
My main task was to animate the feathers, particles, simulations, & textures for this 50 ft Marionette falcon! It was tracked in real time to interact with the narratives on the city behind it. It was constructed of carbon fiber, used 14 dedicated projectors, & took 24 puppeteers to operate it.
It’s the first of its kind. The technology to track, project, & unwrap UV maps onto a moving puppet was something that the Xite team developed specifically for this project.
Utilizing a Blacktrax system, the falcon system was outfitted with 50+ stringers (Infrared beacons) and 20 IR cameras, allowing it to be tracked and projection-mapped in real time with ultra-precision.
I can’t even express how complex and technical this job was. I’m beyond honored to be a part of it, and enjoyed working with my friends at Xite. Top-level artists and amazing people there!