(ECH) - Emergency Convention Hologram

The ECH, or Emergency Convention Hologram, is an interactive "life sized" virtual assistant that responds to questions from users at live events. 

Inspired by similar avatars seen in Star Trek, Mass Effect, and Harry Potter and built on the biological evolution model of change and complexity over time, the ECH is intended to be a charismatic, entertaining, and informative "person" there to help run a booth or panel room at conventions. 

The system  uses the Kinect interface in a sleek durable display, and attendees intuitively understand how to interact with it by waving their hands. It's touchless, which saves on cleanup, and makes the ECH ready for any pandemic!

The user selects pre written dialogue choices to keep the conversation going. While their interactions will be limited, the ECH can respond with anything we can imagine... and we can imagine a lot.

The first appearance of the ECH was at Dragon Con Trek Track 2022, and the debut went boldly!

In addition to being a worthwhile project in and of itself, the  ECH is a testing ground for features that will be added to our flagship Holo-Novel Shuko Sun.  

In the future we expect to expand on lip syncing, facial blends, in-house motion tracked animations, multiple character design, AI-assisted speech, and more. We'll be able to demo those features faster and more efficiently with this new system.  

While the ECH is designed to be an in-person installation with custom dialog specific to each event, we'll be making versions people can interact with here on itch as well. 

We look forward to continuing to develop and deploy the Emergency Convention Hologram, and hope you'll join us for the journey!