Pepper's Ghost Effect - System Prototyping Using Maya & Arnold Render

Mind Map

This mind map shows the connections I made between technical theatre, 3D VFX, and the idea of abstraction. These connections lead me to further research the Disney theme parks and find the Pepper's Ghost Effect.

Modern example of how the Pepper's Ghost Effect works.

downward facing projections are bounced off of reflective material on ground (highlighted in purple). Then reflected off of a stretched mylar mesh (highlighted in blue) at a 45 degree angle.

My own 4 sided Pepper's Ghost Effect made in Maya, using Arnold, with 4 pink light emitting head meshes and an upside down glass pyramid at 45 degrees on all sides. Goal is to make a 3D hologram, floating in the middle of the upside down glass pyramid.

profile Maya Arnold render view. The human bust is being created by reflecting light emitted from the pink head mesh.

3/4 eye level Maya Arnold Render view. The vertical line shown is the meeting point of 2 sheets of glass. discovering a true 3D "hologram" can not be created.

Above 3/4 Maya Arnold Render view. The arrow is showing the created "hologram". The clipped bust reflections (found right of the arrow) prove the "Hologram" is not created by all 4 light sources but just one.

I tried replacing the upside down rectangular glass prism with a rounded cone to compare the differences

profile Maya Arnold render view. The cone shape did not work better. This clearly shows the glass is merely reflecting the light and not making a 3D form of light.

I moved on and decided to prototype a mechanism to work with what the Pepper's Ghost Effect can do best.

Most augmented reality headsets use the Pepper's Ghost Effect so I deconstructed an AR headset and made a Pepper's Ghost Effect autonomous bumper car / automobile.

Rough drawing of a 360 bumper car. Projections will come from the floor and bounce off of the 45 degree curved glass and into the viewers eyes. resulting in a mixed reality experience.

As discovered before, cured glass will distort the projected image. So the graphics being projected need to be distorted first to counter the distortion on the glass. This will done using the idea of anamorphosis.

A final prototyped Maya render of the Pepper's Ghost Effect car. As to not pigeonhole myself this is as far as this project has gone.