The 2020 League of Legends World Championship, one of the biggest events in esports, took place in Shanghai, China from September 25th to October 31st. Creative Technology supplied LED panels to create an immersive xR Stage to broadcast this international tournament.
The League of Legends World Championship is a yearly international tournament that brings together the top teams from each regional league in a battle to host the Summoner’s Cup and earn the title of World Championship. This year marked the 10th edition.
The annual League of Legends World Championship in Shanghai, like most major events, had to be re-envisioned in order to make it happen. Normally, the early stages of the tournament would be a traveling road show, with different rounds taking place in different cities. In 2020, things had to change. With travel restrictions in place, and fans no longer able to attend matches, the team at League developer Riot tried something different, with the intention to honor the great legacy of the game.
In order to make this work, Riot brought in some of the most advanced LED technology from Creative Technology (CT). They used the same Unreal Engine-driven technology used to film Disney’s The Mandalorian series to create an immersive stage setup that changed themes completely depending on the stage of the tournament.
The matches looked like they took place in a cloudy, cyberpunk Shanghai skyline or amid a flooded landscape. What could have been a drab competition in the absence of fans, turned into a really impressive contest with an exhilarating vibe.
For the Lux Machina team, commissioned with all the VFX and xR work, this production was quite ambitious. Due to the fact that the whole project is based on live streaming, there is no time for fixes or tweaks. The background needed to be adjusted and coordinated live to follow the movements of the 4 cameras used, which was at times quite challenging.To build this huge xR Stage, CT used ROE Visual Black Pearl BP2 LED walls and a Black Marble BM5 LED floor. The combination of a 360-degree mixed-reality background using high-resolution LED screens and an LED floor created exactly the type of 3D immersive environment Riot had envisioned.
With a team of team 40 artists and technicians, the complete setup proved to be a powerhouse. The visuals were made using a modified version of the Unreal Engine. Riot claims that the LED walls, consisting of over 900 LED panels, display visuals at 32K resolution and at 60 frames per second.
The total structure consists of a cube, with 3 backwalls from ROE Visual BP2 LED panels, each measuring 17 m. wide and 4,5 m. high. The floor is 17 x 18 m., using 812 Black Marble BM5 panels in total. To install and level the LED floor, a combination of 2 x 2 and 2 x 3 support frames was used.
Completing the setup were Game desks, built from BP2 as well, using 108 panels in total, including the corner panels, making the flush 90-degree angles possible. All LED screens used in this set ran on Brompton processing, using two SX40 processors, including the back-up.
