A repurposed venue at a theme park fuses projection mapping and interactivity to make nature the central point of a spectacular new show. Paul Milligan reports.
To mark its 39th year of operation, and following a record-breaking 2.6 million visitors in 2025, the Futuroscope theme park in France has introduced a range of new attractions that celebrate immersive experiences and large-scale visuals. Among the new additions is La Serre des Mondes (‘The Greenhouse of Worlds’), an immersive and interactive experience that transports visitors into a botanical universe. Based in west-central France, Futuroscope is 10km north of the city of Poitiers and has hosted more than 50 million visitors since it opened in 1987, so is well versed in reinvention to keep the park exciting and relevant to new generations. La Serre des Mondes is a perfect example of this.
It was conceived by Futuroscope in collaboration with FMD (the technical arm of Futuroscope), and is a complete transformation of its former incarnation, the Sébastien Loeb Racing Xperience ride. But the transformation goes back further. This building is now on its seventh iteration, this time with an extension built especially to house this attraction. “This is the seventh life of a building that holds historical significance for the park, as it originally housed our 360° projection venue,” says Yannis Marchet, development and projects manager, FMD. What was the genesis of what eventually became La Serre des Mondes? “We have wanted to have an immersive room for a long time, but not just immersive; we wanted real interactivity with the visitors,” adds Marchet.
One initial reference for FMD was TeamLab in Japan, an interactive museum that uses 470 projectors spread over five zones to display digital art. “The client saw that, and wanted to do it here, but at a smaller scale.” After a tender process for the creative aspects of the show, Canadian multimedia studio Moment Factory was chosen work alongside FMD to design a multisensory immersive walkthrough spanning four successive spaces, each capable of accommodating up to 70 visitors. “For this new experience, we wanted to create something centred around plant life, a poetic and participatory journey,” explains Marchet. It also had to work across the age spectrum: “They really wanted something interactive that could work for both little children and adults.
If you have visitors of different ages, they don’t see the same things, and you don’t understand the same things. The idea was that each person could find out what they wanted and something that could fit their needs.” Visitors to La Serre des Mondes begin in the welcome area with a film featuring Professor Isaac Verdelius, a visionary botanist and collector of plant species from uncharted worlds. Their journey however truly begins when they enter the Workshop, were they get their first glimpses of a previously unseen botanical realm, which emerge when interacting with six different experiments. Holograms of unknown specimens come to life when approached, plants that visitors are invited to smell trigger bursts of air, and other species vibrate and illuminate in response to visitors’ voices.
One particular clever piece of AV in the Workshop features an Epson projector which projects onto a central plant within the three-sided holographic table. Visitors move their hands over the table and, depending on the speed of movement, see digital information appear in front of the actual plant. “This is achieved using a holographic setup where we laid flat, deep-black LG OLED monitors beneath the plant, combined with a holographic pane angled at 45-degrees that reflects the images onto it. "There are two types of images projected onto the plant: one from the ceiling-mounted projector and the other from the flat screens positioned beneath the plant,” explains Marchet.
From the Workshop, guests move into the Greenhouse, the centrepiece of La Serre des Mondes. Constructed during the summer of 2025 as an extension to the existing facilities, this new space covers 300 sq m with a ceiling height of 6m. The environment is brought to life through huge visuals covering both walls and floor, powered by 16 Barco I600 4K 8,000 lumens single-chip laser projectors. The projectors were chosen for two reasons following a shoot-out with two other brands: their superior black levels, and the model’s compact size, explains Marchet. “They are suspended in the ceiling of the immersive theatre and accessibility was very important because we wanted to make sure we could change them easily if there was a problem.”
To help bring a seamless projection mapping experience to life, FMD chose version 7 of Modulo Pi’s Modulo Kinetic media server, which included a new 3D projector auto-calibration module. Version 7 was actually used several months ahead of its official release, due to a long-standing relationship between the manufacturer and FMD. Using six PoE cameras installed throughout the space, Modulo Kinetic automatically calculates projector blending zones and geometric warping in a few minutes, to provide calibrated projection with image consistency across the entire surface, including the venue’s curved corners.
The Greenhouse experience is an interactive one. As visitors move through the space, visual effects emerge beneath their feet, and they are assigned a mission: to collect pollen projected onto the floor beneath the metal greenhouse structure at the centre of the room. Through their movements, they transport it toward the walls, helping to nourish the virtual vegetation displayed around the space. As a result, every movement generates real-time visual effects, creating a truly collective experience driven by the active participation of each visitor.
The installation relies on two Ouster 3D LiDAR sensors. Mounted high on opposite sides of the room, the sensors track the movements of every visitor, with a response time of 200 milliseconds. Using Modulo Kinetic, data from both LiDAR units is merged, enabling the system to accurately capture the position and movement of every individual across the venue’s 300 sq m area. The media server then transmits this data to TouchDesigner via the TUIO 3D protocol. “It’s truly a shared interaction among all 70 visitors that brings the entire space to life, because each person contributes to nourishing the plants through their movements,” says Marchet. “Each person is free to do whatever he or she wants but all the separate people together create the effect.”
After experiencing the impact humans can have on the enchanted botanical world of La Serre des Mondes, visitors continue through the Airlock, where Professor Verdelius reappears in a film sequence to entrust them with a final mission to complete during the last stage of the experience.
Guests then enter a vast circular room and discover the Specimen: a tree standing more than 8m tall and spanning 3m across, illuminated by four Epson projectors repurposed from the former Sébastien Loeb Racing Xperience attraction. Having previously hosted multiple 360° projection experiences, this circular venue has now been reinvented through video mapping projected onto a millennia-old tree sculpture positioned at its centre. “Visitors may be familiar with projection mapping on buildings, but not necessarily on complex, organic structures like a tree. That was exactly our objective. We wanted to surprise them,” says Marchet.
Once again, the video mapping is powered by Modulo Kinetic and its 3D projector auto-calibration technology. Using eight cameras connected to the media server, the mapping is automatically calculated to perfectly conform to the tree’s organic structure and intricate details. Not only did the projectors have to perfectly map the tree, but also the floor too, as the roots of the tree have been painted, “so the video mapping is mixed up with the real paint that is on the floor,” adds Marchet.
The specimen tree is surrounded by 18 tentacle-like roots connected to 18 drums positioned around the perimeter of the room. Visitors are invited to gather around these instruments to complete their final mission: restoring the tree to its full glory. LED strips extend from the tree along its roots to each drum. Whenever streams of light traveling from the tree reach a drum, visitors are prompted to strike the instrument. The captured sound then sends a stream of light back toward the specimen, with the resulting DMX data routed through Luminex LumiNode 12 enclosures to the pixel-mapped LED ribbons. The pace gradually accelerates as more drums are struck, helping to nourish the tree and restore it through a series of projected visuals that become increasingly vibrant.
“We wanted an attraction with real ‘wow’ moments, but we were also looking for something that would allow families to share an experience and actively participate together,” adds Marchet.
All audio at La Serre des Mondes is provided by a selection of different K-Array loudspeakers and amplifiers and Shure microphones, all sitting on a Dante network, controlled and managed by the Q-SYS platform. The entire show control system for La Serre des Mondes is handled by Modulo Kinetic. Day-to-day operation of the attraction is managed directly through the media server. Each day, the attraction operator accesses a control station equipped with a dedicated panel used to initiate opening procedures. A grandMA console is also integrated into the system and controlled via Modulo Kinetic.
All projectors and attraction interfaces are automatically powered on, and a test page allows operators to verify that every system is functioning correctly. Once validation is complete, the first show of the day can be launched for the initial group of 70 visitors, directly from the same control panel.
The four stages of the experience flow without interruption due the automated opening of doors throughout the attraction. The operator interface displays countdown timers and live camera feeds from each room, providing real-time monitoring of visitor progression through the pavilion and enabling staff to efficiently prepare for incoming groups. When necessary, operators can also adjust transition times between rooms directly from the panel. This functionality is particularly valuable for accommodating visitors with disabilities, allowing the duration spent in each area to be dynamically adapted as needed.
To power the projection mapping, Greenhouse interactivity, and show control systems, the Modulo Kinetic installation includes one Kinetic Designer workstation connected to six V-Node servers equipped with four outputs each. An additional backup server ensures uninterrupted operation for an attraction that runs seven days a week.
The project timeline started in earnest with Moment Factory being chosen in February 2025. Electrical work began in September, with AV installation taking place across December, January and February, ahead of a hard deadline of February 7 for the official reopening of the park, which was met. As not all of the building was constructed yet, testing of the equipment took place in other attractions of the park that had already been constructed.
What were the most difficult parts of the installation for FMD? There were a few problems with this project says Marchet. “First of all, Moment Factory wanted some non-European products, especially lights, because their specialty is lighting, so we had to replace them with European and French products.” The hardest thing was to integrate the LiDAR technology he adds. “It was the first time Modulo Pi was using the LiDARs with so many people and such a big space. We were very happy that ModuloPi also adapted the technology to what we needed, they worked on it at the same time as us. We only had 8 days to test with system with 70 people at the same time. We had to find 70 people to test it out on the last days. During the testing period there was a huge regional electricity cut, so we couldn’t do anything for a while as well.”
FMD is Futuroscope’s technical branch, handling projects such as this, but day-to-day responsibility now sits with another of Futuroscope’s maintenance and development teams. “During the first year, we will help the maintenance team. During the construction process we had people from maintenance come with us to see what was happening and to learn the attraction while it was being constructed.”
Officially opened in February 2026, La Serre des Mondes has been a hit already with audiences but is also represents a strategic success for Futuroscope too, as Marchet explains; “La Serre des Mondes is located at the crossroads of several major attractions within the park. With a throughput approaching 1,000 visitors per hour, it helps us ease congestion at neighbouring attractions during peak attendance periods.”
For FMD and Futuroscope, La Serre des Mondes wasn’t just another chance to offer a thrilling experience, says Marchet; it was also an opportunity to deliver something more: “We wanted to pass on a message, to take care of the environment and to make nature the central point of the spectacular show.”
TECH-SPEC
Audio
K-Array KA28+, KA68+, KA18+ amplifiers, KF26, KP52, KK52, KT2 loudspeakers, KU210, KU212, KV25 subwoofers
QSC QIO-ML2X2 network audio expanders
Yamaha Tio1608-D2 Dante stage box
Lighting
Luminex Luminode 12 enclosures
MA lighting GrandMA3 console
Video
Advantech power relay output modules
Banner proximity sensors
Barco I600 and G50-W6 projectors
Brightsign XT1145 media players
Datapath FX4-HDR videowall display controller
Epson EB- PU2216B projector
LG 55-in and 83-in OLED displays
Lightware HDMI-TPS-TX97 HDMI HDBaseT extenders
Modulo Pi’s Modulo Kinetic media servers, V-Node servers
Ouster OS0 LiDAR sensors
QSC X10 server