HBO’s Westworld turns to Unreal Engine for in-camera visual effects

 
Always eager to push the limits of the latest production technology, the production team had been brainstorming about how to leverage in-camera visual effects and virtual production processes into the series since the show’s first season. Because the show is captured on film, incorporating the real time performance of Unreal Engine required an extra level of planning and customization. 
 
In Season 3 of Westworld, the iconic City of Arts and Sciences complex in Valencia, Spain stands in for Delos headquarters. Exterior shots were captured on location, however the interior shots that the Westworld creative team envisioned – with the elaborate complex seen out the window of Charlotte Hale’s (Tessa Thompson) office – were impacted by physical space limitations on set. Epic Games, Fuse Technical Group, Profile Studios, and Spanish-based VFX studio El Ranchito stepped in to help HBO create the desired environment on a 50 by 22-foot LED wall on a stage in Los Angeles.
 
Epic worked closely with El Ranchito, who captured photogrammetry of the City of Arts and Sciences and recreated it as a dynamic Unreal Engine scene; Fuse Technical Group, who handled construction and integration of the LED wall, including mapping of the scene through Unreal Engine’s nDisplay tool; and Profile Studios, who managed streaming the Unreal scene to the LED wall and the camera tracking.
 
Hale’s office was designed to have imposing floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the main artery of the City of Arts and Sciences complex. Using the LED walls and Unreal Engine for real-time in-camera visual effects enabled the Westworld team to capture physically accurate lighting from the environment coming through the glass, with accurate reflections on the sleek interior furnishings – all with the right parallax as the camera moved throughout the scene.