From Georgia to the Nicolini: acoustic space in virtual reality
Two periods at the University of Georgia, between 2023 and 2024: rooms rebuilt in 3D and explorable with a headset, binaural and ambisonic sound, capture of movement and faces. It is the research The Four Turandot grew from.
On 6 February 2023 Gianmarco left for Athens, Georgia, on an Erasmus project: to rebuild the rooms of the University of Georgia’s Dancz Center as he had already done with those of the Nicolini Conservatory. Not only how they looked, but how they sounded. His supervisor was Professor Peter Van Zandt Lane, of the Hodgson School of Music.
The first period: the rooms and the sound
Between February and April 2023 the rooms of the Dancz Center were photographed, scanned and modelled in 3D, with more than nine thousand photos in two months, and then made explorable with a headset in Blender and Unreal Engine 5. Inside, we tested binaural and ambisonic sound, and a visual particle system that moves through space following the sound. We gave two demonstrations in the composition classes, to bring this way of making music to the students too.
The second period: bodies and faces
From October 2023 to July 2024 the work moved on to people: 3D face scanning and motion capture of the body, facial expressions and hands, to bring a performing artist into virtual reality, together with their music. The tools were the Revopoint Miraco scanner, OptiTrack, Move AI, Rokoko and Remocapp.
It becomes a project
In summer 2024, back in Athens, the tests on hands and faces, with face recognition added to Remocapp. In November the tests with several people on stage, and the Milan and Piacenza delegation that made the University of Georgia the research partner on the software. Within the partnership Gianmarco holds the title of International Collaborator at the University of Georgia. In December the first scans of the theatres in Shanghai and Daegu.
This is where the Conservatory’s internationalisation projects came from, under our scientific responsibility: The Four Turandot and Oriental.
Photos: Dancz Center for New Music, University of Georgia. The concert is a still from their video of the 2026 New Music Festival.
