Photograph empty spaces

Taking photos of interesting real-world scenes you come across is the best way I’ve found to jumpstart the holographic envisioning process. Think of taking such photos as a new habit for scouting film locations of your holographic experiences.

Be on the lookout for physical places and spaces that are calling out for something to be added holographically. Whenever you get that feeling, immediately stop what you’re doing, whip out your phone, and snap a picture. Move along.

Sometimes places will strike you as “empty but cool” for some reason. Remember to go back through your pictures when you have time to harvest any of those that move you. Quickly consider the possibilities when triaging the photos. Then share the promising ones with yourself or set them aside in a collection you’ll want to grow over time.

There’s nothing that makes one photo better than another for envisioning, but I have found it’s easier to work with places that have furniture or interesting features, but no people. Try for a mix of daylight and indoor shots. Pay attention to the colors in the scene – they are powerful cues.

Use your Camera Roll to collect photos of empty places for rapid envisioning

I can’t tell you how many photos I have of empty spaces. Hundreds, certainly. Photos full of things, but no people. And therein lies the most interesting paradox in envisioning holographic experiences — you cannot have a successful design without people being the design center. Yet, many of the most interesting ideas come to us when looking at empty space. Go figure. Having any people appear in these spaces could distract you from what it could be used for, so best to shoot empty spaces and let your imagination fill them in.

Choose a scenario backdrop

There will be a time when you need to illustrate how using holograms in a particular situation would play out for some project that you are working on. Designers do this kind of storytelling all the time. While trying to help other people visualize how things would play out in certain scenarios, consider using some of the photos you’ve taken to establish the feel of the scene and get across some key aspects without too much effort.

Go through your collection of potential backdrop photos with a completely open mind to see what jumps out at you. You may have no idea what you’re looking for exactly, which is fine. I tend to feel like the right photo will make itself known to you in some way. Just like scouting locations for a short film, the scene you ultimately choose will need to convey a particular feel and support the interactions of the people (and holograms) that inhabit it.

Whatever photo you come up with for this envisioning exercise should speak to you in a truly compelling way. We’re always shooting for breakthrough scenarios, so your chosen photo needs to fuel great ideas for filling the space. The nice thing about this technique is it’s so easy to switch out photos or have multiple scenarios for each one. Keep the ideas flowing, but pick a good one.

This lobby’s low seating screamed out as needing something on them

The photo you eventually choose will need to enable a scenario, or sequence of events that could plausibly happen. For example, looking at a photo of an empty conference room would certainly lend itself to a scenario where people are meeting to discuss something. Having a soccer match within that room isn’t a plausible scenario for that photo. Would feel off, right?

Identifying scenarios that feel like a natural fit for the photo is critical. Don’t try to force a photo into doing a job it’s not meant for — something about it will look odd or inauthentic. You’ll see how this works when you try this out. The photos actually speak to you if you let them. Go with the flow, and write down some notes on what could work if it helps. Set a copy of the photos you like most aside.

Identify key elements

What was that first thing that flashed into your mind when you looked at the photo you chose from your collection? Was it people interacting with something? A creature? Interface floating in the air? Game going on? Whatever it was is a huge hint to what the focus for this envisioning scenario should be. Why? Intuition and instinct are incredibly useful guides to us when envisioning. Your own imagination and subconscious saw something immediately that wasn’t there based on all of your experiences and knowledge. Dig in and evaluate whatever that was first. At the very least, try to pick something similar enough to your initial impression that feels unforced.

You notice the active word in all those questions is would. It’s a forward-looking exercise, so our thinking is geared toward what’s possible, not what is. What would this scene tell us about the future of holographic computing if we let it?

Here’s how I applied that thinking to my example in this section.

The space lent itself to particular vision for interaction and play

What came to mind immediately in that photo of the empty museum lobby is the tremendous amount of empty space that wants to be filled with people and holograms. Going with my first impression, I found myself thinking there was probably a family enjoying the space on a Sunday afternoon. The kids would be running around getting into trouble, poking at things they shouldn’t. The adults keeping watchful, but having their own conversations.

Another aspect of the photo that really jumped out at me was the large empty outdoor patio just behind the glass wall. What a great place for a huge holographic creature to be angrily pacing around waiting for unsuspecting museum guests to scare or eat. Or something.

It would be easy to say in hindsight I had a clear vision for all the interactions and technology that would eventually be injected into the scene, but that’s not true. I would realize as I worked with scene there were opportunities to editorially comment on telepresence and people’s manners in public spaces when interacting with holograms. It also allowed me to theorize about the future of play and toys. But, none of those elements that eventually found their way into the exploration were thought of initially. I just liked the space as a canvas for holographic adventures.

The photo lent itself to all kinds of interpretations, but the easiest one for me was this scene of a family enjoying the day out, but encountering something very unexpected. I could have locked in on that scenario and tried many different photos to depict it, but that photo spoke to me in that way, so I went with it.

Sketch the hero

Every epic scene has a hero. Find yours. Heroes are most likely going to be some wickedly cool hologram you imagine, but they don’t have to be. It could be that a modest hologram enhances a real-world hero that’s already there. People make the best heroes.

Start by doing a quick sketch of how the hero will be shown within the scene. Import the photo you picked into an app that will let you scribble on top of it (figuratively or literally). PowerPoint in presentation mode works great for this. Alias Sketchbook is another favorite of mine for this purpose. But, something as simple as Paint works great, too. You could even print the photo out and just draw right on top of it with a fat Sharpie. Whatever works best for you.

Sketch your hero on top of the scene photo

Show the intent you hope to convey later through higher fidelity. For now, think through how the hero in this scene will play off of other elements. People, objects, time of day, motion, and lighting all affect how your hero is perceived.

Once you have an idea of how the hero will behave, use markup lines to illustrate movement or interaction even at this early phase of sketching. You’ll find this is what really sells the idea.

Add some people

First a production note - after getting a basic scene sketched out, it’s time to turn the corner and make this real. That means choosing an app or medium that allows you to layer different elements in and manipulate them as needed. Think of the layering mechanism in Photoshop or Illustrator as a guide. Any app with layers can get the job done, so don’t obsess over not having the right tool. You could even draw them by hand in overlay fashion on paper or with cutouts.

As we talked about at the beginning of this post, people are the key to any holographic scene. You need to make that human connection with the audience you’ll be showing this exploration to. It should be completely obvious why someone would be doing whatever it is within this scenario. Showing people that are present and engaged within the scene makes that easier.

Quickly add in some people to give you an idea of their relationship to the holograms

As we’re targeting a higher resolution comp for this exploration, it’s time to find some better people than our sketchy stand-ins. You can use any representation of a person that fits with your scenario and artistic style for this part. They don’t need to be real or even completely photorealistic to get the job done here. I often use the silhouette technique favored by architects and conceptual artists. I find that easiest from the production aspect to convey some design decisions I made, and it also complements the visual treatment I am going for.

For me, the translucent nature of the people in these renderings is appealing but not quite the right approach, so I settled on a different visual language we’ll see later where people who are present are drawn in black silhouette and holograms representing people who are not there are drawn in translucent blue.

Also, you don’t have to be an artist to get that great people effect in your project. Try a web search for ‘people silhouette’ and switch to the Image results. You’ll see lots of examples of the type of people you need to add, whether as full color photography or silhouettes (my preference). You’d be amazed how many different body types, sizes, poses, and actions are available.

We need all kinds of poses — sitting, standing, action shots, doing specific activities, and so on. Think about what you’ll need for the current piece — don’t get slowed down by finding the exact perfect set of these.

Reasonably priced libraries of posed people are available online

Go ahead and find vector art (resolution independent) that is royalty free or buy some as an investment in your envisioning work.

Once you have the people picked out with the proper poses or at least the right attitude, drop them into the scene in a realistic size and perspective (so we don’t distract the audience with our gaffs). Remember, people are the anchors that make or break the believability of the envisioned experience. So, get in there and distort or twist the people into believable perspectives.

Generate a few large size comps of the scene with your sketchy hero and the people who should be in the scenario. You may have to futz with the angle and perspective of the people you add if you’re interested in a realistic feel. That’s easily done in apps that allow for distorting shapes or adding perspective.

Drop in the posed people to bring the space to life

You’ll see in my example, I added a family with the mom and two little kids. I also thought this kind of scene would be perfect for grandpa to join the fun. Wonder what he thinks of the creature in the atrium. We’ll see.

Swap in holograms

Now that the scene has people and a stand-in hero, time to add the other holograms that support the activities and scenario. My suggestion here is to use the highest fidelity representations you can find (either as prebuilt 3D models or dimensional photographs), or create your own custom 3D models of holograms to make a high impact first impression with your audience.

The integration and compositing step of this technique is where you can spend a ton of time if you’re not careful. The goal is to rapidly depict what you’re after with fully lit and integrated content — but not at the expense of being done and moving onto other important explorations.

There’s nothing wrong with low-fidelity sketches or rudimentary stand-ins. They just lack the magic of a photorealistic hologram (which you are going to presumably build if this exercise is successful). It does take longer to carefully integrate holograms that look realistic into the scene, but the payoff is worth in — both in your envisioned pieces and also in the final form.

Find a hero hologram that will fit in. Punch it out of any background so it’s isolated.

As you add it to the scene itself within your app of choice, be sure to fit it to the background photo convincingly. That means adjusting the perspective and lighting to match. Undoubtedly, it will have to be cropped, occluded, or twisted to fit where you need it. It’s not easy sometimes, but we’re in a hurry so just do your best here.

Note the parts that needed to be occluded for realism in placement

After going through all that, step back for a moment to see if your scene has already come to life by just adding the hero hologram and people.

If not, you’ve missed something important. Look critically at each part. Is the photo not the right angle? Are the people not the right size or looking disinterested? Does the hero not look like a real hologram? Whatever it is, isolate and fix it so we can move on.

Next step is adding our supporting cast to the scene. Create or find all of the other holograms that fill out the overall experience. Same rules apply here — use the highest fidelity stand-ins you can find within the shortest amount of time. Take care to adjust their size, orientation, and visual appearance to be just convincing enough to get the job done.

Layers show the different scene elements and ordering in Photoshop

This is where the detail comes in. You’ll most likely be illustrating specific features.

Show it around

Once our envisioned scenario is even close to being convincing we need to show it someone else to get some feedback and test out the initial hypothesis about what the scene could depict. The intent here is to literally just show your comps to a few people to get a quick reaction.

Don’t setup a formal test. Print out the comp or take a laptop around showing the image. With no prompting by you whatsoever, did they say out loud what your intent was when you started the envisioning process? Be honest here. It’s ok if they didn’t get it. Just means you have more work to do.

Even if they did get it right away, I bet they made some suggestion or asked why something was a certain way. Remember those. Go back and fix the scene so it reflects that feedback if it makes sense. Buy that person a coffee and call it good.

Even in this super early phase of ideation and experiments, you have to be willing to listen carefully to people’s feedback. It’s human nature to not want to hear criticism after working so hard. But, maybe it is true that your holographic unicorn looks like a horse with a fake horn. That’s fine. We’ll get it next time around.

Sharpen the focus

After getting some feedback on the earlier version, you probably will want to make a final pass to get all objects sized properly, adjust overall lighting, get rid of extraneous elements that don’t help tell your story.

In our example, it became clear after some feedback that I was missing an opportunity to comment on how telepresence could add something significant to the scenario. Turns out that grandpa wanted to go to the museum with the grandkids, but he’s not as mobile as he used to be. Much better to virtually invite him and have him appear in the lobby along with the family to join in with the festivities. You’d have full audio but he would appear as a translucent blue hologram in the scene (that particular look being my design choice for depicting people who are not actually in the space, but rather holoported in).

Note the translucent blue treatment on the person who is not there in person

This phase allowed a bit more consideration of other interesting aspects that were not immediately apparent right off. Use this phase to punch up key features and fade back things that are not important to scenario and storytelling.

As an example of some polish you can apply at this point, don’t overlook the importance of sound, even in a static image. You wouldn’t want to go see an IMAX 3D movie with no surround sound, right? Same thing here. And easy enough to add if you have access to PowerPoint. Just embed a sound within a PowerPoint slide by assigning a sound file to that slide that auto plays when the slide is projected.

Try it again

The bias in this type of technique is toward forward motion. We want to keep exploring, trying things out, failing, and trying again. So, given that our first thought is probably going to be move on, try it again in a different way or completely scrap what we’ve done.

There’s not right answer here. You will know by the reaction of other people whether you tapped into something important or undiscovered with your initial work. Careful to not let your ego or invested time color your thinking here (just as with any type of design work). There’s nothing wrong with completely starting over again with the same idea, knowing you didn’t quite nail it this time around. It’s difficult to get something you’re happy with right off. Take practice.

Regardless of whether you choose to move on or keep digging in, we’ve learned a valuable technique to leverage in the future. It gets us the impact and persuasion that can help move the idea to the next level.