Turner Sports deployed Orad Hi-Tec System’s real-time 3D graphics solutions to transform the full moon into the Turner logo, enhance hazy mountains, and create virtual scoreboards on the skyline of Phoenix during four days of TNT's NBA All-Star Week coverage last month.
"This is our second year working with the Orad graphics solutions during NBA All-Star Week, and I have to say the effects were incredible, a complete success," said Jordan Shorthouse, art director for Turner Sports. "In my view, virtual enhancements are the future of broadcast because the more we learn about their use, the better we get, and the more we can do. Viewers enjoy being entertained, and the sophisticated effects we create using the Orad systems are great entertainment."
Turner relied on Orad’s 3DPlay solutions. To orient viewers to host city Phoenix, Turner relied on shots taken from the 22nd floor of a downtown building. Unfortunately, real-life views of the outlying Phoenix Mountains were hazy and washed out. To compensate, Shorthouse found stock images of the mountains, which were then enhanced using Orad's 3Designer and dropped into shots in real-time using 3DPlay.
Turner also used the Orad solutions for the virtual inclusion of scoring updates and promos on the sides of prominent buildings within the skyline. And one night, when a cameraman noticed a full moon over the city, Orad solutions enabled the moon to be both repositioned into the shot and redesigned so that it morphed into the TNT logo.
