11.5.2005
Kärkijoukkue Productions (Vanguard) is a multimedia production company that specializes in interactive storytelling and 3D-modelling technology.
The company's core expertise is in real time 3D-technology and using the latest innovations in this field. Kärkijoukkue Productions offers this technology to companies and organisations to enable them to present their information in new and creative ways.
Kärkijoukkue Productions started as a non-profit organization in 1997 in order to create the Finland at War DVD-ROM. To meet the educational goals of the project, the Real time interactive 3D -visualization toolkit was developed together with the Digital Media Institute (DMI) at the Tampere University of Technology (TUT). The Academy of Finland and the Ministry of Education has appointed DMI as the Centre of Excellence in Research.
Under the leadership of Kärkijoukkue, the production team had up to 50 people working on the multimedia project and included scriptwriters, media designers, and information technology specialists from four leading Finnish media production companies: A4 Media, Everscreen, Morning Digital Design, and TietoEnator.
The project was funded by Finnish industry, private Finnish foundations, the National Technology Agency of Finland (TEKES) and the EU.
The Finland at War DVD-ROM was launched in October 2004. After the publication the core of the production team joined Kärkijoukkue Productions to find future commercial applications for the tools and production concept.
The first commercially available product based on this technology was made for visualizing the complex and multilayered series of historical events in 1941-1944 The Finland at War, the world wide interactive storytelling prize winner of the Prix Möbius 2005 on Ile de la Réunion. Users can observe the battlefields, the weaponry and the events that occurred from any angle. This provides deeper understanding about the reasons for the outcome of the battles, and even the war. Old maps, wartime aerial photographs, satellite based altitude data (GPS) and video shots made by the production team in the air and on ground assured accurate modelling and textures. The extensive research both in Russian and Finnish war archives and interviews of 50 Finnish, Russian and German war veterans ensured academically valid conclusions and strong phenomenal storytelling.
This concept has great potential for use in any 3D educational, entertainment or business solutions in off-line and on-line environments in coming years.
The innovation is a unique way of presenting complex physical environments where users can observe events in an interactive way on a real time basis. The toolkit facilitates efficient programming of scenarios and visualizations of events and structures. The created scenarios can be presented in any environment that supports ActiveX –technology, which allows the toolkit to use established market leading solutions in 3D -technology.
