InBroadcast - April 2022 - 34

34
www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 12 - Issue 4 | April 2022
InStudio
Virtual Production and the importance
of having the right tools for the job
By Michael Geissler, CEO,
Mo-Sys Engineering Ltd.
F
or decades we have been shooting
talent or products in green screen
studios and adding (compositing)
photo-realistic 3D graphics in postproduction
to finalize the shot. This is
the foundation of a visual effects shot
(VFX). It was and still is very much a
two-stage process. Virtual production
in most cases makes this a one-stage
process, by enabling the VFX shot to
be captured on set, in camera, in realtime.
The virtual production process
saves time, money, and is much
more efficient, but requires a greater
level of pre-production preparation,
virtual
production knowledge and
experience, together with the right
tools for the job.
The concept of virtual production
is not new. Tracked virtual graphics
arrived during the mid-1990's where
they
were used
for broadcast, albeit with
predominantly
limited
tracking, no lens calibration and
would typically produce poor virtual
image quality.
Thankfully, the story doesn't end
there. In what Mo-Sys have named
Virtual Production 1.0 (VP 1.0), circa.
2016 we saw the introduction of
games engines capable of producing
photo-realistic
onset
pre-viz.
The
next logical step would have been
real-time VFX in green/blue screen
studios, but we jumped straight to
VP 2.0, where production of The
Mandalorian illustrated the exciting
new capabilities
of
using LED volumes.
Hype, coupled with a surge in
demand from the locked-down live
events industry, who cleverly pivoted
into virtual production for survival,
meant that many early LED VP stages
were using lower quality live event
LED tiles, live event-oriented media
servers and mo-cap tracking systems,
rather than cinematic
LED
tiles,
dedicated cinematic content servers,
and
systems such as Mo-Sys StarTracker.
Right now, virtual
precision camera tracking
production is
in its third stage of evolution - VP
3.0. It has matured over the last
five years and in 2020, the global
market was reported to be worth in
excess of £2 billion and is expected
to grow beyond £5 billion by 2028.
Mo-Sys' experience gained from 25
years within the broadcast and film
industry, together with bleeding edge
innovation is driving VP from what it
was in early 2020, to what it needs to
be in order to deliver on many of the
benefits originally promised.
Within broadcast and film, there
now a greater understanding
is
surrounding the limitations of live
event LED tiles and events media
servers which were developed for
entertainment applications such as
projection mapping and timeline
lighting shows.
Cinematographers and
Supervisors
VFX
dedicated, focused
their needs
meets
real-time VFX a closer content
to traditional
compositing quality.
are demanding a
that
toolset
and
enables
quality match
post-production
Mo-Sys is delivering exactly that
with its award-winning VP Pro XR.
Designed
by
in-house cinematic
innovators for XR creatives, Mo-Sys
VP Pro XR is an award-winning,
dedicated XR server solution that
takes a radical new approach to
delivering cinematic
standards
to
on-set, real-time virtual production
using LED volumes. Designed for LED
stages with or without set extensions,
it can also be used with blue/green
screens
and
enables
shooting techniques within an LED
volume, with a focus on composite
image quality.
Typically, directors
cinematographers
must
make
continuous calculations to make the
real and virtual elements match in
post-production. This is often a costly
and repetitive process. A pioneer
in providing a platform for graphics
rendering as well as camera and
lens tracking to create higher quality
virtual productions, Mo-Sys has made
it even easier to produce seamless,
high-end productions with VP Pro
XR. Designed to enable the use of
traditional
shooting techniques
within virtual productions, it removes
the limitations on the ability to tell
stories that are imposed by current
XR stage designs.
Another major hurdle in VP and
Mo-Sys Cinematic XR Focus allows focus pullers to seamlessly pull
focus from real objects, through the LED wall, to focus on virtual
objects that appear to be positioned behind the LED wall, using the
same wireless lens control system they already use today.
A reverse focus pull is equally possible.
the use of LED volume comes when
switching between multiple cameras
pointing at an LED volume. Whilst the
camera outputs can be switched in
1 frame, the virtual scene displayed
on the LED volume typically take 5-6
frames to update. This means on
every camera switch there will be
5-6 frames of the previous camera's
virtual scene displayed on the LED
volume, before it updates with
New VP Pro XR Multi-Cam feature overcomes the
typical 5-6 frame refresh delay in an LED volume
when switching between two or more cameras
the correct
perspective
view for
the new camera. As a result, you
get a background flash on every
camera switch, which is unusable in
production.
The latest
addresses
the delay
traditional
this
and
switching cameras, and the LED
volume updating with the correct
perspective view of the live camera.
More importantly,
and
iteration of VP Pro XR
orchestrates
between the operator
it will do this at
up to the full UHD4K resolution of
the LED processor input, whereas
previous workarounds would reduce
the resolution of the content to HD to
achieve the same outcome.
Along with full
resolution multicam
switching, Mo-Sys Cinematic XR
Focus enables seamless interaction
between
virtual and real worlds.
This feature ensures that an LED
wall can be used as more than just
a backdrop, allowing it to integrate
with the real
stage.
This
cinematographers the means
gives
to
seamlessly rack focus deep into the
virtual world and create immersive
shots which enhance their visual
storytelling.
NearTime®
is
Mo-Sys' patentpending
and HPA Engineering awardwinning
solution for solving real-time
VFX virtual production image quality.
The solution comprises a cloudbased
utilizing
Smart
of separating talent from the LED
background
without
introducing
copious green spill, when combined
deliver higher quality real-time VFX
content.
https://www.mo-sys.com
auto-re-rendering system
Green, a method
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://inbroadcast.com/news/mo-sys-to-show-spectacular-realtime-augmented-reality-at-nab-show-2022 https://inbroadcast.com/news/mo-sys-to-show-spectacular-realtime-augmented-reality-at-nab-show-2022 https://inbroadcast.com/news/mo-sys-to-show-spectacular-realtime-augmented-reality-at-nab-show-2022 https://inbroadcast.com/news/mo-sys-to-show-spectacular-realtime-augmented-reality-at-nab-show-2022 https://inbroadcast.com/news/mo-sys-to-show-spectacular-realtime-augmented-reality-at-nab-show-2022 https://www.mo-sys.com
InBroadcast - April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of InBroadcast - April 2022
