When the 2021 National Football League season kicked off this month, one team put on a show that, well, stole the show. The Carolina Panthers used what they’re calling "mixed reality technology" to make a virtual panther run around the stadium on the big screens.
What really made this virtual cat stand out, though, was the fact that it was running around a real-time feed of the stadium. When it jumps onto the field at one point, it definitely would have trampled the people on it had it been real.
The panther was created by The Famous Group, which has made mixed reality mascots for other teams in the past. They made the panther itself in a program called Unreal Engine, then rendered it within a live feed from the stadium. This meant that the camera operator had to know the giant cat’s path in advance, so as to move the camera in time with its movements. The video was shown live on the big screens in the stadium, then later posted to social media, where it really took off.
