Company: HangLoose Media Group
Industry: Media and entertainment
Objectives
HangLoose Media Group is a renowned production company specializing in the creation of high-end promos and the seamless broadcasting of live events. Their agility enables them to adapt quickly and efficiently to client needs, ensuring a seamless and satisfying experience.
Red Bull Contested, the first major Fortnite LAN tournament in the UK, made its way to Edinburgh in June. The historic McEwan Hall in Edinburgh was chosen as the venue, promising an electrifying competition in front of a live audience. RedBull introduced a unique twist to the traditional Fortnite competition points system. In the final four rounds, eliminations carried double the points, forcing participants to adopt aggressive strategies to remain competitive and enticing lower-ranked players to unleash their full potential.
As the production company behind the event, HangLoose Media Group played an integral role in bringing Red Bull Contested to life. With their expertise and passion for esports, they orchestrated a seamless and captivating experience for both participants and the audience, ensuring that the event would be etched in Fortnite history.
The Soluma team has been brilliant from start to finish and the broadcast and in-venue experience of Red Bull Contested wouldn’t have been possible without their expertise and deep understanding of OCR technology. Hang Loose Media and Red Bull were really pleased with how their solution performed.
This has certainly opened up the possibilities from a broadcasting perspective going forward and many different deployments of this technology is being considers across all our other projects.
Fantastic job, thank you!
Michael Brown, Head of Production at HangLoose Media Group
Challenge
HangLoose Media Group faced a truly unprecedented challenge in the lead-up to the highly anticipated Red Bull Contested Fortnite event. Their objective was clear: to capture the essence of the gameplay by accurately extracting the usernames of each participating player in real-time.
This was essential in order to trigger the corresponding individual player cameras for display on the screen during the broadcast. However, they encountered a significant hurdle the closed nature of Fortnite’s technology, which unfortunately did not offer any APIs for camera triggering. They were determined to find an innovative solution that would allow them to seamlessly integrate player camera switching into the production workflow. They understood that the key lay in harnessing the power of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which emulates the human ability to recognize and interpret text.
Collaborating closely with Soluma, HangLoose Media Group embarked on a tailored approach to develop a cutting-edge OCR solution that could meet their specific requirements. The OCR software, integrated into their production system, was designed to scan the game interface in real-time and capture the usernames of the players as they appeared on the screen. This data, once extracted, served as a trigger mechanism for the seamless switching of individual player cameras, ensuring that the audience could witness the most relevant gameplay action at any given moment.
Solution
Soluma’s customized solution is based on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. A system that allows the extraction of text information from images or documents. In the context of a gaming tournament, OCR technology can be utilized to capture changes in a player’s username or display name.
The OCR technology works by analyzing the image and identifying the characters within it. Through advanced algorithms and pattern recognition techniques, the system recognizes and translates the text into machine-readable format. This enables the system to understand the player’s username and associate it with specific actions or functionalities.
Once the OCR system successfully extracts the username from the captured picture, it triggers the necessary processes to showcase the contestant on the relevant camera feed. This can include displaying their gameplay footage, live video feed, or any other relevant visual content related to the player.
By linking the OCR technology with the appropriate camera system, the tournament organizers can ensure that the correct contestant is shown to the audience, enhancing the viewing experience and providing accurate visual representation during the event.
Overall, OCR technology plays a crucial role in automating the identification and tracking of contestants in gaming tournaments. It enables seamless integration between the captured image, the recognition of the username, and the activation of specific actions or camera feeds to showcase the corresponding player. By leveraging OCR technology, organizers can streamline the process and enhance the visual presentation of participants, creating an engaging and professional experience for both players and spectators.