Post AbjVw5wXf5wlmSZvyi by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
(DIR) More posts by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
(DIR) Post #AbjVw20eHsr5a2T9pA by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
2023-11-12T05:52:15Z
1 likes, 7 repeats
A couple of days ago at work we announced the Steam Deck OLED. It’s available next week (Nov 16) and though it’s got a bunch of great improvements like longer battery life, faster downloads, the star is the ultra-bright HDR OLED screen. The screens are ridiculously bright and vibrant, so we thought it would be fun to use actual Steam Deck OLEDs as lighting sources to light our entire launch trailer. Of course this necessitated building a giant metal orb. First though, here’s the final spot:
(DIR) Post #AbjVw374BVaD0ETnSy by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
2023-11-12T06:04:45Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
The orb itself was designed and built by a handful of people responsible for the actual Steam Deck hardware – some folks who work on the device itself and some who work primarily in the prototyping/fabrication workshop (and some Steam Deck clips made by an accessory designer on Reddit). The networking was a collab between people in the IT group and help from Steam networking (including a couple old retired switches from Steam and a rackmount case from an old Dota event).
(DIR) Post #AbjVw3nxc1tV9GY3KC by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
2023-11-12T06:14:15Z
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Software was maybe the most fun, because it wasn’t custom. Steam Deck is “just” a Linux PC in a tiny case, which meant we could use a bunch of existing solutions. We wanted to iterate quickly so ideally the whole thing would work in realtime (as opposed to rendering out individual videos per-screen and playing them in sync). So we ended up using OBS for the whole setup - both from the transmitting computer and running on each receiving Deck in the orb - with the NDI plugin for low latency sync.
(DIR) Post #AbjVw53axNzj22s3Ki by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
2023-11-12T06:27:16Z
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NDI is a standard developed by NewTek (the creators of the Video Toaster!) for sending streaming video around a LAN with low latency and good sync. It’s apparently used by a lot of modern planetariums, and megachurches, for example. We took the CAD file and did a quick spherical unwrap to know the approximate screen positions in a flat space, built that into a very wide and high res After Effects project to animate in, and then sent it back out to the orb as a single, tightly packed 4K video.
(DIR) Post #AbjVw5wXf5wlmSZvyi by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
2023-11-12T06:30:57Z
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The result was you could - either in semi-realtime in After Effects or with a rendered video - send motion graphics to the orb in realtime and then tweak it, and try again very quickly. It also meant doing things like adding rim lights to the Steam Deck in the center of the orb was as simple as drawing some rectangles in OBS. Here’s a video of the packed 4K grid streaming over to the orb in OBS:
(DIR) Post #AbjVw6rGGDJicN7EO0 by ja2ke@idlethumbs.social
2023-11-12T06:34:43Z
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It meant we could capture some truly bananas footage lit entirely in-camera that both looked beautiful and really showcased the power of the displays in the new hardware (whether secretly or overtly, depending on if the viewer figured out what they were looking at). Also it meant we got to build a huge video orb, which I imagine is a life goal shared by many. You can see these videos at much higher res and also check out the Steam Deck at http://steamdeck.com
(DIR) Post #AbjVw7aHYpKUs0BBYm by jeff@misinformation.wikileaks2.org
2023-11-12T14:30:07.829287Z
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@ja2ke i am more excited about the increased dram speed and power optimization
(DIR) Post #AbkkFGG7q4JjzpaT1U by kix3n@0w0.is
2023-11-13T04:18:56.652000Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
pondering the steam deck oled orb