So what is a “Virtual Set Presenter”…?
The basic concept is of a picture which loads in the web page (the ‘set’), with an overlay of video (the ‘presenter’) that is crafted in such a way that the presenter looks to be ‘present’ in the scene set by the background image.
The technology employed is filming to green screen, using production processes to re-size the video, web coding to play it with the alpha channel intact and position it down to the last pixel, so that the desired degree of realism and ‘presence’ is achieved.
The process requires careful design, with interaction between the video crew, the web developers, and the web designer; every member of this team needs cross-functional skill sets so that each component can be accounted for from design through coding and production.
Lighting is extremely critical, as is the web coding for the video to deliver the type of interactivity that fits with the scene and nature of the content.
If you are interested in this type of process, drop me a line.
One of the challenges with this particular type of project is coming up with example code for the web developer, that provides capabilities such as: timed call-backs (different for different video clips), sensing actions in progress, or if the video had finished. The timed call-backs can trigger web page actions such as JavaScript functions.