Pixotope CEO Talks the Company's Story, Products, and Unreal Engine

Introduction

My name is Marcus Brodersen, and I am the CEO of Pixotope, the leading software platform for end-to-end real time virtual production solutions. Before joining The Future Group (which later became Pixotope), I worked at a film production company in Oslo, Norway called Filmkameratene. I have an older brother who works in animation, and he managed to get me a job at the company straight out of high school. This was the late 90s, and we were still making 2D animated movies by drawing and painting on paper, and my first job was to scan the drawings and paintings so they could be digitally colored and composited. I ended up staying with the company for 17 years, and at that time I had the opportunity to work on many different types of live action and 3D animated feature films and tv-series, in different capacities. While my focus and core competency throughout my time at Filmkameratene was digital animation and post production, I ended up working as a producer, focusing on project development, financing, and marketing.

One of my frustrations working in the film industry was the lack of collaboration and cross over with other related media industries, such as computer games and live television. So, when I had an opportunity to join a company that promised to do just that, I jumped at the chance and joined The Future Group in 2016.

My initial role at The Future Group was to help build out the broadcast production infrastructure for the show Lost In Time, the world's first Interactive mixed reality game show. Because there were no virtual production solutions available in the market that could do what we needed, we ended up building the solutions ourselves, and that later became the basis for Pixotope.

The Story of Pixotope

Our story began in 2013, when we were still known as The Future Group. Back then, we were a bunch of tech enthusiasts who believed that real-time game engine technology had the power to revolutionize the world of broadcast content. We envisioned a future where storytelling was immersive and experiential, and we set out to make it a reality.

Our big break came in 2017 when we premiered Lost In Time, on Discovery Networks' TV Norway. We had to invent everything from scratch for that show, because there simply wasn't anything like it on the market. But that's how we roll – we're a bunch of problem-solvers who love nothing more than a good challenge.

After Lost In Time, we knew we were on to something big. We had all this amazing knowledge and understanding of real-time virtual production workflows, so we decided to create our own software. That's how Pixotope was born. We officially launched it in February 2019, and it quickly became a hit. The demand for virtual production was skyrocketing, and we were right there at the forefront of it all.

In 2021, we became Pixotope officially, and we've never looked back. Our software has been used by some of the biggest brands in the world, including the NFL, League of Legends, Eurovision, and The Weather Channel. We're incredibly proud of what we've accomplished, and we're excited to see where the future takes us.

At Pixotope we create technology and solutions that empowers creatives and media creators. At our main office in Oslo we have 2 test facilities, or labs as we call them, where we test our software. We also have a similar setup in our Cologne office, where we develop our computer vision and machine learning tools. That being said, we are a global organization, with team members in more than 15 countries, spread across all time zones.

Products and Services

Pixotope is at the forefront of democratizing virtual production, empowering content creators with accessible solutions for boundary-pushing immersive storytelling. We are the only real time virtual production platform provider encompassing all the necessary components for real-time augmented reality (AR), extended reality (XR), virtual sets, camera and talent tracking. Pixotope empowers content creators and broadcasters to produce best in class mixed reality (MR) content for television, online streaming, and film. 

At Pixotope, we are working to overcome the three main barriers to virtual production adoption and growth currently facing the industry: the shortage of people trained in tools and workflows, complicated camera tracking and graphics workflows, and operational costs. We have developed the solutions and initiative to address these issues, including some of the most recent ones, which are:

• Pixotope XR Edition includes a range of tools to simplify setup and operation by reducing the technical complexities and associated resource costs of XR workflows and environments. Its purpose-built tools address common operator pain points while removing the need for proprietary hardware, streamlining workflows and reducing set-up time and costs as a result.
• Pixotope Education Program is a community-oriented initiative for higher education institutions, it aims to help prepare the next generation of Virtual Production talent and overcome the current talent shortage. By providing students with access to Pixotope tools to develop their skills as well as connecting them with a number of industry professionals and partners from around the world, Pixotope aims to equip them for a successful career in this industry.
• As part of the education program, we have also recently launched Pixotope Pocket ,which provides an immersive and intuitive way for aspiring creators to produce immersive content with augmented reality and virtual studio tools. The mobile application makes virtual production education more accessible and affordable for students, allowing them to learn and create anywhere without the need for a fully equipped studio.
• The recent launch of our Pixotope Fly Edition is especially notable as it is the first-of-its-kind through-the-lens (TTL) markerless tracking solution that dramatically simplifies creating and tracking augmented reality elements with drones and cable cameras. The unique markerless technology eliminates the complex setup and creative constraints imposed by tracking markers, enabling productions and live events to engage audiences with dynamic real time aerial graphics.

Leveraging Unreal Engine

Pixotope was the first to harness Unreal Engine for virtual production in broadcast. Unreal initially had no broadcast capabilities – key and fill didn’t exist within the engine. Pixotope developed these capabilities from scratch and modified the engine to support. The UX we put on top of Unreal Engine simplifies for creators, making it dependable and practical. 

We provide the graphics engine that generates the virtual elements in virtual production and makes sure they blend seamlessly with the physical elements, including camera tracking, which enables blending real camera movements with virtual camera movements so real worlds and virtual worlds line up perfectly.

The Roadmap

We have several exciting projects in the pipeline that we can’t give too much away about just yet! That said, they all closely align with our mission of making virtual production accessible and valuable to anyone who wants to use it, including broadcast graphics professionals and students. 

Marcus B. Brodersen, CEO at Pixotope

Interview conducted by Arti Burton