Bringing The Mary Rose Story to Life on OPUS

Written By Pete Gardom

OPUS Mockups showing Steve Foote speaking about raising The Mary Rose

Diving into New Stories with OPUS and CCIXR

Today, we’re heading to one of the UK’s most iconic maritime heritage sites—The Mary Rose—to demonstrate the power and potential of volumetric video, AR and OPUS: The Next Stage. In partnership with the brilliant team at CCIXR Portsmouth University (Centre for Creative and Immersive Extended Reality), we’ll be showcasing a brand new augmented reality (AR) experience that brings underwater history to the surface in an entirely new way.

At the heart of this is Steve Foote, a marine archaeologist and cameraman who played a leading role in the dive team that raised the Mary Rose from the Solent seabed in the early 1980s. Steve’s knowledge, passion, and wit made him a beloved part of that remarkable story. Before he passed away, CCIXR were fortunate to capture his story in full 3D using volumetric video technology at their studio.

Now, with OPUS: The Next Stage, visitors can meet real people, like Steve, anytime and anywhere, as a lifelike digital presences, placed right within the historic site itself.

But this isn’t just about recreating a talking head. We’ve expanded the scene with sound design, atmospheric visuals, and a touch of marine magic:

  • A curious cuttlefish, animated by archival anecdotes.

  • A school of fish swirls around the scene.

  • And Tom the friendly lobster, who used to visit the divers during their long underwater shifts, makes a charming appearance.

This is storytelling at the intersection of archive, memory and immersion—a new way of creating and experiencing history that feels immediate, emotional and deeply human.

A New Approach to Living Archives

This project is more than a tribute to Steve or a new interpretation of the Mary Rose—it’s a demonstration of what’s now possible with next-generation media tools.

By combining volumetric performance capture, AR spatial storytelling, and real-time effects, we can turn oral histories into rich, place-based digital experiences. Visitors don’t just listen—they encounter, explore, and feel the story unfolding around them.

This work is part of our broader mission with OPUS: The Next Stage—a platform that empowers cultural institutions to use immersive technology not as novelty, but as a way to engage new audiences, amplify underrepresented voices, and create meaning through performance, place and technology.

We’re excited to share this work with the Mary Rose Trust, museum professionals, and the public, and to keep pushing what archives—and storytelling—can become.

#MaryRose #VolumetricVideo #AugmentedReality #OPUS #CCIXR #ImmersiveStorytelling #DigitalHeritage #SteveFoote #UnderwaterArchaeology #3DArchives #MuseumInnovation

Pete Gardom
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