When Virtual Reality brings people together to celebrate live music, you get "Alone Together" by Jean-Michel Jarre.

We had to manage the R&D and digitization of Jean-Michel Jarre’s performance in order to translate it into the virtual world. Several motion capture systems were tested for this project to find the best possible combination of precision, simple set-up, quality of movement reproduction, and movement freedom for Jean-Michel Jarre on stage. JMJ was therefore able to choose the technology best suited to his performance from an artistic and practical point of view (fluid hand movements, but more “artificial” leg movements was the dynamic he wished to see).

We also created a process that allowed him to see his physical and virtual instruments in Mixed Reality in sync. JMJ was truly in both worlds: he played his real physical instruments while his movements were being accurately mirrored by his virtual avatar in the VRrOOm world, where he could communicate with the audience’s avatars. 

To do this, we opted for light equipment with movement trackers on his hands to convey the playing of his compositions which was the most complex element to capture. For his head, we used a Vive Pro headset.

One of the challenges for us was also to develop a system that was compatible with the VRChat platform so we could have real-time data transmission from the real to virtual world with the least possible latency.

SoWhen?’s co-founders Freddy and Mohamed also accompanied and coached Jean-Michel Jarre throughout this project so that he could optimize the use of all the experience’s connected technologies and find the best ways to control and fully embody his avatar.