SMODE’s real-time visual engine and media server was at the core of Cercle Odyssey, a touring concert series that blended generative video, spatial sound, and scent into a fully immersive audience experience. Developed by French music platform Cercle, Odyssey placed the artist at the centre of a vast, transportable projection environment that travelled to cities including Paris, Los Angeles and Mexico City. Well-known artists involved included Max Richter, Monolink, Ben Böhmer, Moby and Rawayana.
Built as a 2,300sqm mobile venue, the Odyssey structure enclosed the audience within 12m-high, 50m-wide screens on all sides. This panoramic canvas displayed constantly evolving visuals powered by SMODE, synchronised with 360° spatial audio and scents to support the thematic flow. With the artist performing in the middle of the space, the show was designed to immerse audiences in a sensory-driven narrative rather than a conventional front-facing stage setup.
The technical centrepiece was SMODE, selected as both media server and visual engine for its ability to composite, playback and modify complex visuals live. Provided by Alabama Média (part of Groupe Novelty), the system ran on X-REAL media server bays, with eight servers – four active and four redundant – handling 12x4K outputs distributed via HDMI over fibre using Lightware systems for low-latency delivery to projectors. The live setup included five synchronised projection surfaces running ultra-high resolution 8K content.
Unlike conventional shows that rely on pre-rendered content, visuals for Cercle Odyssey were generated and manipulated in real time. SMODE enabled designers to respond to each artist’s style on the fly, customising colour, movement, texture, speed, and scale. Many visuals, including particle effects, 3D sprites and nebulae, were entirely generative and calculated live, creating a unique performance for each of the 30 concerts.
The company says the system’s flexibility allowed content to be controlled using a variety of interfaces, from lighting consoles to gesture-based systems like theremins.
Pre-production took place in immersive studios operated by Groupe Novelty. SMODE’ says the visual engine’s 3D preview capabilities were instrumental in visualising and testing concert setups before the physical stage was constructed. This enabled the team to preconfigure spatial layouts, transitions and camera moves.
Mathieu Glissant, visual creator, Cercle Odyssey, said: “This is a new type of immersive and nomadic concert experience. We travelled the world with a monumental installation – a mobile immersion space with giant screens, a central stage, spatialised sound, synchronised scents… everything is designed to offer a completely new multisensory experience. The aim was to reinvent the way people experience music at concerts.”
Morgan Davodet, visual operator, SMODE, added: “Each concert is different, and each artist has their own specific needs. SMODE allows us to adapt visual content to each performance without having to start from scratch. It allows us to reconfigure, reinterpret and reorganise media libraries according to the artistic requirements.”
Davodet concluded: “We have developed generative content using SMODE to create visual bridges between reality and digital elements. These elements are entirely modifiable in real-time – colour, speed, density, orientation – and we can control them through various interfaces. We can trigger, modify and improvise during the show.”
