106 cameras, holograms and sticky tape: Inside Microsoft’s mixed reality capture studios

FILE- In this May 11, 2017, file photo, members of a design team at Cirque du Soleil demonstrate use of Microsoft's HoloLens device in helping to virtually design a set at the Microsoft Build 2017 developers conference in Seattle.Microsoft Corp. reports earns on Thursday, April 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

LOS ANGELES: Before famed British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough ventured across the Atlantic to star in his first virtual reality film last year, an advance team took the trip with a key prop: a handful of Attenborough’s signature pale blue shirts. 

The shirts had to be tested because Attenborough wasn’t just visiting a regular VR film set. Instead, he was being filmed at Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Capture studio, housed on the company’s Redmond campus. It’s a specialised studio dedicated to volumetric capture, capable of recording people in full 3D, ready to be turned into holograms.