The Final Chapter of Our 39-Month Journey

 Let’s start from the beginning. We met in October 2022 in Athlone, Ireland, at the premises of our project coordinator, Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), with a clear goal: creating human-centric tools for remote content production and consumption via social virtual reality. Twenty partners from 12 different countries gathered to develop a range of AI and XR-based solutions for the cultural and creative sectors (specifically news media, broadcasting, performing arts, and cultural heritage). Our mission was to enable them to understand media at scale and to create and consume next-generation media experiences powered by Social XR technologies.

From Athlone, we flew to Brussels, home to our partner Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), to dive into the design of the TRANSMIXR Use-Cases. Like everything we did in this project, we started with an analysis of users, needs and challenges ahead. We believe it’s safe to say we did it! We developed four use-cases: Cultural Heritage, Performing Arts, and Newsroom Broadcast and Toolbox and these were the bread and butter of our three years of work. 

With “The Space Archivists”, a social VR game that transforms 2D collection metadata into immersive adventures we democratized storytelling. By using interaction templates instead of expensive 3D assets, we’ve made XR sustainable for museums and curators. (Use-Case designed by our partners Sound & Vision, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), TUS, Khora and VUB). We also created new ways of experiencing live performance by blending digital humans with theater. Through motion and volumetric capture, we created unique Mixed Reality (MR) journeys that allow audiences to interact with performers’ expressions and dynamic digital sets in real-time with “Cadence of Altered Illusions” (designed by SATORE Studio and HSLU, KHORA, TUS, TCD, VRAI, CWI).

For the journalism sector, we reimagined the future by creating a Virtual Production Gallery with the Newsroom Broadcast Use-Case (led by TG4, IMM, TUS, CWI, CERTH, VRAI, Intel, TCD).This pilot allows news teams to produce live broadcasts from anywhere in the world using virtual studios and AR graphics, making news more engaging for a digital-first generation. To empower creators, we developed a suite of AI-driven tools that simplify the production of XR content. The Newsroom Toolbox  acts as the bridge for journalists and artists to easily integrate 360-degree video and volumetric content into their daily workflows. We even entered the world of XR storytelling by “flying” to Planica without leaving the comfort of home. (Use-case led by AFP, RTVSLO, SparkNews/A4MT, EBU, webLyzard, MOD, Storypact, CERTH, HSLU, TCD, VUB, IMM).

As you can see, we didn’t just build them; we brought them to life. At our mid-term review meeting, our preliminary results indicated a positive impact on the creative and cultural sectors, on the words of our coordinator, Niall Murray, “While we have achieved much, the review has offered us insights that will be instrumental in refining our approach,” “We are committed to leveraging this feedback to ensure the continued success of our project”. This was the moment that truly testified to our project’s relevance and its potential to address pressing issues effectively. We took that to heart and continued to push until the very last stages.

Our work wasn’t just about meetings and internal labor; we also got out there to share our progress with the world. The first time we captured the spotlight was during Immersive Tech Week 2022. Since then, we’ve come a long way, attending more than 100 events ranging from industry to scientific, online to in-person, featuring trainings sessions or workshops, booths or talks (or sometimes both), as a consortium or partners only, as only TRANSMIXR or in synergy with other European projects (we made 15 successful synergies*). We had a tremendous time sharing our developments, validating our research, getting feedback from the users and testing it in real life environments. The project’s practical value was validated by 375 users who evaluated our pilots and 90 participants who engaged with our Demonstration Box. Our work culminated in a very successful presence at UnitedXR.

Academic and professional impact was equally strong, with 80+ publications generating more than 3000 downloads and 2300 views. Our work was recognised with nine awards in total, including the ‘Evolution of the Control Room’ winning Project of the Year in the IBC Accelerator Competition, as well as several Best Paper Awards. We couldn’t be prouder. Our commitment to capacity building and stakeholder engagement was demonstrated by 485 webinar participants, 300+ training participants using our 20+ training materials, and 360 workshop attendees. These efforts resulted in the creation of five guides and workbooks designed as practical tools for creators, developers, and practitioners. These resources bridge the gap between research and practice, offering a blueprint for anyone working at the intersection of technology and artistic expression.

During our journey we welcome more partners, finishing with a consortium of 22. We held eight general assemblies after the kick-off (Lisbon, Amsterdam, Dublin, Thessaloniki, Ljubljana, Paris, Vienna, Porto), and we met with an external advisory board to get some important inputs. Beyond the hard work, we laughed almost as hard, we had internal quizzes just for fun, we forged new friendships, partnerships and collaborations for the future (even a TRANSMIXR 2 is on the table).

Looking back, we can say with total confidence: the project has achieved all its goals. We say this with our final review meeting behind us, where congratulations were in order for all of us and the feedback of the reviewers was extremely positive (their words).

We know we have said this before, but it takes a village, and we couldn’t finish our last article talking of anything else besides the team. In the words of our reviewers: “the energy and passion of the group was excellent, we could see it as people jumped in to defend the project when questioned”, “bringing such a large and diverse consortium together to work so closely and effectively is a great achievement in itself and you did it”. We certainly did.