35 
Oh Pac, you’ve duped us once again. It turns out that disquieting hologram burning its way across Coachella and the entire internet wasn’t an actual hologram at all: just a reflection using a 19th century magician’s tricks.
For those who thought the immaculately-chiseled rendition of Tupac was based on some sort of old footage, more disappointment: Rolling Stone reports the rapper was CGI. But at least it was good, expensive CGI, “created by the Hollywood special effects studio Digital Domain, who have previously worked on films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, TRON: Legacy and X-Men: First Class.” Total price? Somewhere between £65,000 and £250,000. And it paid off: other than the weird super-abs, occasional unintentional moonwalking, and the performance’s finale, wherein Tupac vanished in a burst of light, the whole thing was plenty realistic. With all the weed and ecstasy throbbing through Coachella, there were probably a good number of fans who thought they were actually witnessing a reincarnation.
But that’s just the image source — how did AV Concepts, the firm behind the display, actually project Pac on stage? It calls him a hologram, but hologram he is not: it’s a fancy reflection technique called “Pepper’s Ghost,” named after a mid-19th century optics researcher John Pepper. Yep! 19th century. The trick is based on the fact that glass is both transparent and reflective, meaning it’s possible, with the right angles, to bounce a picture off of it that appears to be floating in air. It’s an impressive show when done on a Coachella scale, but it’s not Princess Leia action. This might explain why AV Concepts and Dr. Dre’s managed both refused to speak about the tech behind Tupac’s exhumation until after this weekend’s Coachella performances—where presumably more “holograms” will be trotted out. Fingers crossed for a George Harrison/Big L holo-mashup. [Rolling Stone and Ars Technica]
Image credit: Christopher Polk/Getty
This Is How the Tupac Hologram That Wasn't Really a Hologram Worked
Hologram Tupac's Got Nothing on Hologram Bill Murray
The Experimental French Aircraft That Wasn't
BTW, that gif is really irritating.
Bit of a shame it wasn’t a “real” hologram in the end.
Isn’t this the same method that the Gorillaz use for their stage shows?…
It seems a bit like the Titanic…It’s not news until someone stupid on the internet thinks it’s real.
the titanic was real
Yes, there should have been a
at the end of that sentence… 
But I’m guessing the issue didn’t come up in the same way when the Gorillaz did it, as no one would have thought that they made it from real footage of cartoon characters (and they never died).
Well gosh, what a surprise, not a real hologram you say. Perhaps asking questions before regurgitating press releases will see you fooled less often.
Funny that this article is another regurgitated press release!
I think so too!
So am I the only person who knows that full colour 3D holograms don’t actually exist yet ?
Indeed, I am surprised that people have been so amazed by this! I saw the same thing at Universal Studios with Christopher Walken about 5 years ago.
Wow, you went to Universal Studio’s with Christopher Walken, did you win some kind of competition? I
I saw this in the Haunted house at Alton Towers. XD
As long as you don’t tell me that this isn’t a real hologram, I’m fine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI&feature=player_embedded
So what their saying is, they didn’t need the full computer generated version of Tupac at all! They could have just cleaned up and used existing footage, with a bit of CG mouth tweeking (a la Forrest Gump’s JFK or any one of a dozen talking animal programes) to match movement to new words.
It would have amounted to the same thing… for a lot less money.
The trick goes beyond the Musion system & CG performance.
Parts of his performance would need to be synthesised or dubbed by a voice artist (unless he’s ever shouted ‘Coachella’ in a previous recording)
Also, at around 1:15 you see him from a couple of different angles. This isn’t possible with the musion system, so those shots would have to have been edited into the video after.
The image at the top of this article is probably also post-production work.
What idiot thought this was a real hologram?