TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

While the resurgence of FMV as a “cult” phenomenon is itself good reason to reconsider the genre, there are new reasons to pay increased attention to cinematic images in games, including emerging computational vision technologies like volumetric video.

Volumetric video is a computational fusion of digital video recording and depth sensor data, resulting in a spatialized, and potentially navigable, 3D captured moving images. It has been made widely popular thanks to the Kinect accessory offered by Microsoft for its Xbox 360 console released in 2010. Such images are becoming increasingly prevalent and sophisticated, driven by interest in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) production. These images can be produced in front of the typical green screen setup; volumetric captures are typically destined to be integrated in 3D environments generated by computers. Volumetric capture is making its way into music videos, documentary (After Solitary, Lauren Mucciolo, Cassandra Herrman, 2017; Emblematic studios), sports (Intel Sports), virtual reality (Vestige, Aaron Bradbury, 2018; NSC Creative studios) and the art world (Jacob Niedzwiecki's Pillar). Although there is a growing production community surrounding the technology, creators have yet to explore its full expressive potential, particularly in procedurally intensive, interactive forms such as videogames.