EMIL

EMIL, the European Media and Immersion Lab, establishes a physical and virtual infrastructure, supported by research excellence, technological and creative expertise, with the overall aim of promoting innovation and the development of next-generation XR content, services and applications. It clusters the competence of internationally leading institutions in four key creative industry regions in Europe (Finland, Germany, Spain and the UK), bringing together excellence in narrative media production, smart garments, animation, VFX, embodied interaction, digital cultural heritage, digital health, motion capture / analysis, scientific research and technological development.

EMIL cultivates a strong relationship with the creative industry community that is established through the third party projects (FSTPs): designers, game developers, engineers, entrepreneurs, media enterprises, artists, digital fabricators, creative coders, user/citizens and public service media operators, with the aim to also connect them to one another and potential innovation partners across Europe.

 

The consortium consists of these partners:

 

• Aalto University
• Universitat Pompeu Fabra - UPF
• Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Animationsinstitut
• University of Bath

 

Through two calls EMIL is funding project proposals in the range of 250.000 - 500.000 EUR with a total budget for third party projects of 5.6 Million EUR.
For an insight into the funded projects, please follow this link: emil-xr.eu/funded-projects

 

Additionally, each EMIL node creates an XR Lighthouse project around its core competence smart garments, embodied interaction, digital health and narrative storytelling.

 

Further information about EMIL, the Lighthouse and third-party projects can be obtained on the official website: emil-xr.eu

 

Within our narrative location-based VR experience FATE OF THE MINOTAUR, the players embody the role of human sacrifices from Athens who are sent into the labyrinth of the Minotaur by Minos, King of Crete. The experience tackles the universal topics of guilt and shame, as the players learn about the tragic family story behind the ancient Greek myth. They meet Pasiphae, the mother of the Minotaur, who tries to protect her son. His half-sister Ariadne wants to convince the players that the Minotaur is a raging monster. Players may choose to become the 'slaughterer of the Minotaur', but the heroism of this action is put into question in the context of our narration.
In a unique approach, the content can be experienced in different immersive scale options, depending on the technical and physical limitations of the location.
 

 
The official trailer for the narrative VR experience
FATE OF THE MINOTAUR:
 

 
 
 
FATE OF THE MINOTAUR - Player Reactions:

In July 2024, we were invited to present FATE OF THE MINOTAUR at the Immersive Pavilion of SIGGRAPH 2024 in Denver, Colorado. Players from all across the globe and from various backgrounds — artists, tech experts and VR enthusiasts — immersed themselves in the adventure. Their enthusiastic responses have been compiled into a short video.
 

 

As part of the FATE OF THE MINOTAUR lighthouse project, the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg utilised their TRACER framework. TRACER, the Toolset for Realtime Animation, Collaboration & Extended Reality, is an open-source, software-agnostic communication infrastructure and toolset designed to integrate open-source tools into production pipelines. It establishes interoperability between open-source and proprietary tools, targeting real-time collaboration and XR productions.

 

FATE OF THE MINOTAUR serves as a sample implementation, demonstrating how the TRACER framework can be applied to create a location-based experience. Based on a Unity implementation and a TRACER snapshot from 14 September 2023, the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg developed a short tutorial, the “Location Based Experience Example”, showcasing how TRACER can be used in location-based experiences. Since TRACER is engine-agnostic, this work can be used as a template for implementation in other engines or digital content creation (DCC) tools.