philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

ESPN+ debuts ‘McEnroe vs. McEnroe.’ the first-ever tennis match between a real person and their virtual avatar

Premiering on May 7 at 10 p.m. EDT on ESPN+, Michelob Ultra, in collaboration with tech and production company Unit 9, presents “McEnroe vs. McEnroe,” the world’s first tennis match to feature a real person versus a virtual player -- both being a version of the entertaining, confrontational tennis player, John McEnroe. In the match, the real McEnroe will face off against his ultimate opponent—his younger self. In this case, a virtual player powered by A.I.

The 45-minute film will showcase how the match was created using a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, plus five virtual avatars of John McEnroe from pivotal points of his career. ...

The team at Unit 9 spent a day with John in order to bring the vision to life via full-body scanning, motion capture and Unreal Engine MetaHuman technology (a cloud-based app that creates photorealistic digital humans). The avatar game system will be projected on a hologram particle screen and will be a simulation of gameplay with a system of ball launchers and ball return robots. ...

When McEnroe sends the ball over the net, the avatar responds to the direction of the real ball. As the avatar swings, a new ball is fired from the ball cannon and then flies through a smokescreen at a precise point in space to make it appear from the avatar’s racket position. From what is shown in the trailer, the hologram particle screen makes the virtual John McEnroe look blurry and distorted. So we will have to see how this actually looks on the big screen when the film airs. ...

See the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/espn-debuts-mcenroe-vs-mcenroe-130057590.html