{Startup watch: Holocraft} Creating cutting edge visual narrative experiences powered by real-time tech

This Chennai based virtual production and real-time animation startup is creating cutting edge visual and narrative experiences powered by real-time technology.

Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian, and Dune, these are movies and shows with the greatest special effects. This is all possible because of real-time technologies, which lets creators work without the need for lengthy rendering times and siloed workflows.

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Holocraft, a Chennai based virtual production and real-time animation startup, creates real-time animated and virtual production content. It specialises in metaverse, motion capture, real-time animation, camera tracking hardware and software virtual production, 3D content creation, previsualisation, chroma screen, and consultation.

The Tech Panda spoke to Praveen Jayachandran, Co-founder of Holocraft, about their startup journey.

With years of collective experience crafting immersive real-time experiences and storytelling, we have come together to create cutting edge visual and narrative experiences powered by real-time technology

“Holocraft primarily focuses on creating real-time animated and virtual production content. We offer a wide array of services such as virtual production, real-time production, motion capture, 3D content creation, previsualization and consultation,” he says.

“We are a team of creative designers and developers specialising in the domain of virtual production. The organisation holds USP like pre-visualisation that easily combines physical and virtual objects using a series of software tools. Holocraft also provides options for motion-capture, real-time animation, camera tracking hardware and software along with green screen production,” he adds.

What They Do

When applied to the media and entertainment industry, real-time software allows writers, production teams, artists, directors, and film crews to focus on creation hassle free, bringing their ideas to life faster, more innovatively and flexibly than before.

Real-time production is the process of producing animated content entirely using game engine technology in real-time. The process makes use of the virtual production pipeline to carry out the traditional production process of shoot, lighting, edit etc., but in real-time in virtual environments.

Real-time production also cuts down the rendering time to just a fraction of that of an offline renderer giving you more time to iterate and produce content at a faster rate

Real-time production also cuts down the rendering time to just a fraction of that of an offline renderer giving you more time to iterate and produce content at a faster rate

“This helps the crew to visualise the entire production virtually in real-time, as it is being shot. Real-time production also cuts down the rendering time to just a fraction of that of an offline renderer giving you more time to iterate and produce content at a faster rate,” explains Jayachandran.

Origin & Inspiration

Jayachandran primarily drives the company towards capitalising on opportunities in the market through various sales and marketing channels. He develops new marketing strategies to capture market channels bagging new clients and increasing the prospects for virtual production, which is still a nascent industry in India.

“I have been using the Unreal game engine since 2016 for developing Arc-viz and VR applications where I bridged the connection between digital (3D) and the real world by creating virtual environments. I was still working when I met Sreejith Sreenivas and discussed the idea to explore the field further,” he recalls.

Technological advancements in GPU fuelled Unreal Engine’s ability to create photo-realistic content and finally virtual production became a reality for both in 2019. In May 2019, they finally left their jobs to co-found Holocraft.

Epic Games’ Unreal Engine is a suite of high-quality development tools for anyone seeking to take advantage of real-time technology solutions in mobile, PC, console, AR and VR platforms. Creators can use this tech in game design, immersive cinematic experiences, photorealistic visualisation, interactive product design, film, virtual production, mixed reality TV broadcast, animated entertainment needs and as a potent and smooth Game Engine.

Growth Story

Since their establishment, Holocraft has pulled 15+ successful projects with 10+ clients boasting of a bandwidth of 35+ workers. They are currently working on an ambitious real-time animation movie, which is expected to be completed in December 2023.

“At Holocraft, we believe that the future is where real-time technology meets innovative storytelling. With years of collective experience crafting immersive real-time experiences and storytelling, we have come together to create cutting edge visual and narrative experiences powered by real-time technology,” says Jayachandran.

We want to expand Holocraft as wide as possible

The startup is parallelly working on a music video and an animated documentary, which will be released in June/July this year. Karu, their real-time animated content, short crafted entirely in the Unreal Engine, ended up winning the first runner up title in the Unreal Shorts India Program.

They have also created well recognised projects like Logan, a real-time animation product, Neston an LED in camera VFX, and Radhe Shyam, a green screen production.

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In the future, Holocraft plans to come up with more animated and VFX videos with more innovative touches.

“We want to expand Holocraft as wide as possible. Our goal is to provide excellent service to our customers and to lead the industry with our works,” he concludes.