Avolites Is Top of Its Game at Las Vegas Annual 21st D.I.C.E. Awards

	An Avolites Arena and two Ai R4 media servers controlled the lights and visuals at the D.I.C.E Awards in Las Vegas. Photo: Laura Kisner

A complete Avolites light and video integration system, featuring the brand's latest Arena lighting console and two Ai R4 Media servers, was used to drive the lighting and video content for the 21st annual D.I.C.E. Awards, held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Awards celebrates the latest innovations in interactive entertainment in the video gaming industry. For its 2018 edition, the event's long-term lighting designer Joshua Schultz worked alongside Andre Huff, director of Limelite Design, who were tasked to deliver a light and video presentation within a set design of clean, structural lines to accompany the awards ceremony.

"Chris Wu from Hatch, one of the awards' production partners, let me run with the design this year," says Schultz. "I took a lot of my inspiration from the intro video to the awards, which had a 'Tron' feel to it. I came up with a straight-line, hard-angle type design to make the stage and awards' space look clean and coordinated."

Schultz used Martin by Harman Sceptron 10 LED video fixtures to create the direct geometry of his design making the best of the space's hard-edged architecture. Huff mapped a series of complementary color palettes across three onstage, cut-out screens. The screens framed three smaller screens that displayed live and pre-recorded Awards footage, including a live feed from the stage, live game-play footage and pre-recorded nomination content.

"I relied heavily on the Ai v10.1 software's output configuration page to map the screens," says Huff. "The concept of the show was to make the set a large projection surface for the awards. So, the night before the show the set company came in and covered the whole set with projection material. I had to then map the set and leave cut-outs for the rear projection screens that were in the set."

To achieve seamless integration between light and video for the awards, Schultz and Huff networked two Titan Net Processors (TNPs) with the two Ai R8 media servers using Titan Net. They then controlled the entire setup from an Avolites Arena console via Art-Net with a second arena serving as backup.

"We were running around 45 universes on the awards this year," says Schultz. "The TNPs allowed us to take a load off the console and put it onto the processors. Using Ai and Titan alongside each other meant that integration across the whole system was easier."

The rest of the D.I.C.E. creative and technical team consisted of Alex Parayuelos who was the event's crew chief, Patrick Hartung who was system tech, and Lonnie Johnson who was the projectionist for the awards.

"I would like to thank PRG Los Angeles and Jon Morrell for all the lighting and video gear and their continued support," says Schultz. "As well as Brad White and Kade Behm from Group One for all their help."

Schultz has been an Avolites user for several years, and previously used a Sapphire Touch console for the 2017 D.I.C.E. Awards. "Avolites provide me with support day or night," he says. "They continue to push their software to new heights, meaning it is always exciting to use their platform and to check out their new features."

The D.I.C.E. Awards held its 21st awards ceremony at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Thursday, February 22. The awards are produced by The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and recognition of the interactive arts.