The Marvel Experience started its tour yesterday at Scottsdale, near Phoenix in Arizona and i've got great videos for you as well as more details about what the guest will find under the domes including a 4D simulator ride and the first giant 360 stereoscopic 3D dome projection!
"The goal is for the visiting audience to feel like they are part of the Marvel universe, recruited to overcome the conflict at hand", said Jason Rosen, chief production officer of Hero Ventures which owns a 14-year license with Marvel.
"We want people to say, 'Wow, that was visually spectacular,'" Rosen said. "I want kids to say 'I saw Nick Fury,' and others to feel like a superhero. "We're dealing with photo-real types of animation, which is similar to what Spider-Man looks like in the movies," he said. "He looks real, but he's computer-generated. We made our characters look real and people will relate to that. We want them to come away talking about it."
From Phoenix Business Journal: "The first-person experience makes the visitor part of the show, with unique technology making the immersive experience visual and something the "superhero" can feel and touch. There are touch screens, motion comics and five 8-minute original movies to watch in each of the domes. All of the content is produced from scratch, and Hero Ventures hired an Oscar-winning animation studio and composer to write the score, Rosen said.
"I never thought that audiences will fully grasp this experience until they see it," he said. "I think the moment the first person walks through the door the word of mouth is going to be unbelievable. I think it's going to make people really happy. People will feel a sense of wonderment you get when reading a comic book or watching a movie."
One dome is similar to an IMAX film, while another dome is a fully immersive 360-degree stereoscopic, 3-D experience. "You really feel like you're in the middle of the action," he said. "We're using 14 different projectors for this 65-foot dome. There are plenty of 180-degree domes out there. The fact that this screen is everywhere around you is pretty excited. When I saw it for the first time, I got really excited."
Another 80-foot dome has a motion-ride experience, similar to the Star Tours ride at Disneyland, with the audience moving in conjunction with the on-screen film. "You're on a wild ride where you step aboard a Hovercraft and watch four minutes of an aerial battle you're a part of with all the characters of Marvel standing by and guiding you through the experience," Rosen said.
Audience members participate in the experience with a light band around their wrist, which impacts the outcome of their own movie. The light band glows and acts as a laser to help the person defeat the bad guys using radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology.
The power light band also tracks the visitor's progress through the experience. Each interactive station recognizes the person by their band, with collectible widgets available for people to trade and collect.
The half a dozen interactive games are housed in the main 160-foot diameter, 60-foot high dome. Some of the games use augmented reality where the person can see themselves next to various superheroes."
And this next video will tell you all about the technology used to create this Marvel Experience.
They've also recreated the Avengers Quinjet!, here is a rendering of the scene...
...and a video showing you the building of it in six monts!
We've got too videos of the outside domes, this first one is an aerial video shot a few weeks ago while The Marvel Experience was getting set up in Scottsdale.
And another one a few days later, as seen from the highway, passing by.
Videos: copyright Hero Ventures, Marvel
