May 1, 2019
Virtual production: Stargate Studios creates final pixels on set
To achieve this, they’ve created ThruView, a set of tools that enables them to shoot in real time, while actually seeing CG elements—complete with reflections and lighting—integrated in the camera, eliminating the need for green-screen setups.

The combined output is piped into Unreal Engine at high resolution, playing back at up to 60 frames per second. “That is a lot of data that has to get through and be processed in real time,” says Lopez.

Clients are suitably impressed. “We're showing people something they have never seen before,” says Nicholson. “You generally don't see very many things for the first time. It's real magic when you see it.”

But the benefits are also financial, with a show shot in even a single environment or just a few environments potentially generating over 500 green-screen shots. “At that point, now we start talking about the financial realities of shooting on green and the financial realities of what ThruView can offer a production,” say Binder.
Nicholson is keen to point out that, while real-time on-set effects are not new, producing final-quality pixels from them is. “For many years we've pursued real-time green-screen shooting; there's a four- or five-frame lag on there and you're basically doing a previsualization on set, but it's not a finished product,” he says. “Now what we're doing is going for finished product on set in the lens—done.”

According to Nicholson, Unreal Engine has played a pivotal role in ThruView’s success. “I don't think any of this would be possible without the Unreal Engine,” he says. “There's a universal creative language developing; the Unreal Engine is very much part of that. It’s the converging of all these technologies: individually they're all getting faster and better, but what the Unreal Engine allows us to do is put all of them together in one place at one time in a dependable fashion—on set.”
Want to find out what magic you can create in real time? Download Unreal Engine today.