Nickelodeon has shut its Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab, a division of the brand designed to identify and experiment with new and emerging technologies to develop new entertainment experiences across VR, AR, and AI for the entertainment company, it has been revealed. The Lab was closed in Nickelodeon in early 2020 following the Viacom-CBS merger, reports Protocol.
Launched in 2017, the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab was charged with developing new entertainment experiences for kids by identifying and experimenting with new trends in technology and emerging platforms to create new creative capabilities and entertainment. Some of the areas the Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab worked on included real-time rendering, virtual cinema, virtual reality, augmented and mixed reality and artificial intelligence.
The Nickelodeon Entertainment Lab focussed on building prototypes to test new ideas, collaborating on innovation with show creators, and shaping strategy around production capabilities to fuel future content opportunities.
The Lab was headed by Chris Young. Whilst at Nickelodeon, Young was behind many of Nickelodeon's new-gen entertainment experiences for kids including: SlimeZone, a multi-player social VR experience that allows kids and families the opportunity to interact in a Nickelodeon-designed virtual world; The Loud House 360, an original video where viewers can explore the madness of the Loud family household from all angles; and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LIVE VR Interview Experience, a virtual reality experience that immerses users in the Turtles’ iconic New York City world and allows them to have a conversation with Mikey or Donnie, voiced on the scene by the actors who play the roles. The Turtles experience debuted at San Diego Comic Con 2018. In addition to overseeing a team of artists and engineers focused on real-time animation technologies, Young also designed, built and managed a state-of-the-art virtual stage equipped for full-body motion capture and location-based virtual reality development, and conceived the concept and produced the prototype for Nickelodeon's top-rated Do Not Touch AR app.
Young also created Meet the Voxels (working title), an original TV, virtual reality and augmented reality series that follows an African-American and Latinx family where everyone is from a different video game. To produce the pilot episode, Young utilized Unreal Engine and rendered real-time using full body and facial performance capture.
Young also designed the animation pipeline and supervised real-time facial performance capture, clean-up, retargeting and key-frame animation for Project85, Nickelodeon’s first attempt at producing real-time animation in Unreal Engine. He also identified, hired and managed animation service providers, led design reviews, communicated updates to development and production teams, created and produced VR & AR companion story experiences. Project '85 was shown by Epic Games CEO and Founder, Tim Sweeney at GDC during his keynote speech.
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