Cineom, Centroid Motion Capture India, Green Rain, Liminal & Famous Studios recently announced the launch of their virtual production pop-up R&D lab for the future of content creation.
The post-production operations have become challenging amid the pandemic and filming at physical locations is the biggest hiccup. Therefore, virtual production is being seen to have a gigantic prospect. Adoption of technology to tell better stories has only accelerated amid the current crisis.
Speaking to AnimationXpress about the potential of virtual production, they explained, “Virtual Production are two small words but there are 1000’s of various elements involved in it. If we had to specify the newest trend which everyone is buzzing about, is the Virtual Production with LED wall, wherein you have the opportunity to do in-camera VFX but we in our LAB aren’t just limited to LED wall Virtual Production.”
The collaboration is meant to bring together multiple elements that can add to the fidelity and seamlessness of the content, unlocking the next level of virtual production.
Speaking about what they’re set to bring to the table, they shared, “We are moving one step ahead by doing an amalgamation of all the virtual production technologies together such as motion capture, real-time 3D compositing, VR, AR and real-time Pre-viz.”
A set-up as sophisticated as that will indeed ease the workflow and provide more flexibility to the filmmakers with regards to shooting the content with a virtual background.
Detailing the elements they’re planning to bring together, they shared, “The intention is to set up an LED wall studio with up to 4K resolution display and set the workflow pipelines right for the media & entertainment industry. We will be setting LED walls of the highest quality (this is the most premium model of LED walls and would be the first setup in India of such high quality). We will be using these LED walls to produce the final pixel content so the need for post-production and outdoor shoots reduce.”
With this partnership, the quartet is aiming to provide a hybrid solution to the content industry as the coming together of forces will ensure a more meaningful application of virtual production which will also include the wonders of Unreal Engine akin to the technology used in filming Mandalorian.
Speaking about the dedicated pipeline they are planning to put in place, they revealed, “Also, the main motive behind doing this is to solve all the missing links in the workflow and get the pipeline right so that the rest of folks in the industry can start using it and leverage upon it. We have the best of the best teams on board to set up the right pipeline.”
They further shared, “We will be the first ones in India to use the superior tracking technology (Stype) with this setup. Adding to this, we will try to achieve an integration of motion capture and zero density integration to add in the foreground elements in the camera feed which is coming from the LED walls. We will also try to integrate real-time keying and compositing using LEDs as a green backdrop.”
With the rapidly changing landscape of content production and the challenges posed by the pandemic, we’re certain that this collaboration will ease the workflow woes and put the wind in the sails of the filmmaking scenario.