Business Fortune
Virtual production has evolved and become crucial in today’s digital landscape, especially heightened by Hollywood's interest and COVID-19. It allows visual effects to be integrated during production, improving workflow and efficiency. Virtual production is about more than connecting remotely; it fosters innovation and high-quality output. disguise stands out among companies providing virtual production solutions, offering a platform for creative professionals to efficiently manage the entire production process from concept to execution.
For over two decades, disguise's Designer software has been trusted for visualizing and designing video content across various projects, including live entertainment and virtual production. Designer aids users in winning pitches, developing storyboards, and creating technical setups. The company’s media servers provide advanced graphics processing and seamless content integration, enabling high-quality rendering and composing. Users can create diverse content, such as real-time graphics for virtual sets or video for live shows. Additionally, disguise offers support and training, including a free eLearning platform launched in 2020, fostering a community of over 3,000 users to share solutions.
Speaking with disguise's chief product officer, Raed Al Tikriti
XR technicians are becoming more and more popular. What degree of adaptability does the application offer?
Extended reality (XR) merges real and virtual worlds, including Augmented Reality (AR), which overlays 3D content onto real backgrounds. It has successfully enhanced broadcasts like the 2021 Euroleague Basketball Final Four and BTS’s world tour. XR also includes Virtual Reality (VR), where users experience different environments through headsets, and Mixed Reality (MR), which integrates real-time content with live elements for immersive experiences. Since its debut in Katy Perry’s 2020 American Idol performance, disguise XR has been used in over 400 productions across various sectors, including live entertainment for artists like Billie Eilish, films and shows for Netflix and Amazon Prime, and corporate events for Siemens and Verizon, spanning more than 40 countries.
This evolving technology is paving the way for the metaverse, comparable in size to the internet. XR and the metaverse enable new virtual worlds with unique economies. Examples include Balenciaga's virtual fashion shows, Siemens' trade showcase, and DJ Marshmello's performance to 11 million in Fortnite. Soon, physical goods may be linked to their digital counterparts. The metaverse will mirror our world, as seen with hybrid concerts using disguise XR in Fortnite, allowing live and virtual experiences.
In this category, there are other significant players. How do you set yourself apart from the competition with your services?
While comparable systems are available, Disguise's technology offers the most dependable end-to-end solution, enabling users to make adjustments to their output at any time and keep complete control over all aspects. We developed our technology to be used in an environment where errors cannot be made because of our background with live events. We also aim to enable our users to leverage our exclusive RenderStream infrastructure to make modifications and have them reflected throughout, something that is not possible with other tools, and to perfectly previsualize their projects utilizing our software Designer.
Additionally, we have a good working relationship with Epic Games, the developers of Unreal Engine, and we have enabled our software to work seamlessly with the most recent version of Unreal Engine right out of the box, unlike other programs that can require extra configuration. These qualities provide our software and hardware a competitive edge and are the reason why many of our clients consider us as leaders in the sector.
Are there any new services that are prepared for release?
We recently released our R20 software release, adding six new languages to our product's language list. Along with English, Spanish, German, French, Korean, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese, these are also included. Additionally, it has brought about enhanced processes and integrations, enabling our users to cooperate and work more efficiently. Our goal with this historic release is to increase the global reach of our platform, which has won numerous awards.
Along with access to translated user manuals and training materials in the aforementioned six languages, users will also have the chance to complete training in their native tongue in order to become certified disguise professionals. Shift forward to remote, cloud-based worldwide cooperation with the help of our recent acquisition of Mapping Matter and Previz, two of the top 3D content previsualization tools.
What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?
We have recently expanded our operations around the world with new office openings and dedicated support and technical solutions teams based permanently in Seoul, Korea; Tokyo, Japan; Beijing, China; and Auckland, New Zealand, on top of our existing presence in key markets in EMEA and the Americas, with a dedicated support and technical solutions representative in Spain and an ever-expanding team in our London HQ and LA office. disguise is currently used in 40 countries.
This will spread throughout the world as disguising XR and extended reality become standard operating procedures, particularly in movies and television shows. The metaverse, the upcoming platform for all of our experiences, can also be accessed via our solutions. We are in a unique position to establish the foundation for a future digital world because we were early innovators in this industry.
Meet the leader behind the success of disguise
Raed Al Tikriti is the Chief Product Officer at disguise, a company that creates visual storytelling. He continuously monitors the market to determine how disguise might advance. In order to surpass client expectations, he blends a thorough technical understanding of how and why things are developed with exceptional relationship management abilities. Raed has a wealth of experience in product management, having held comparable positions in digital media and broadcast technologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including Ventuz in Germany and Grass Valley in Canada.
