This is really cool. I had bought a 4k Ultra short trow projector to do stuff like this, and was shocked at the price of ALR screens Lol! I took the cheap route and used white paper backdrop along with really dim lights, even so there was still a little spill that lifts the black levels a little, not ideal but fixable in post. I'm very impressed with what you can get away with using the ALR!
Yeah, we found that the ALR screen made it about 30% easier to light. It still requires control of the lighting, but the screen is minimizes spill just a little bit better.
Hi, I like very much virtual production video series you shared 👍 I'm at the beginning with all of this. Curious to know whether I have to specifically have a camera which is able to output genlock ? Does Blackmagic URSA camera you used in this video can output genlock ?
I would be curious if you have compared your LED projector solution with a 4K/8K tv solution. Is the contrast ratio and latency better on a tv screen, despite the smaller viewing-width?
This subject is whats keeping us from moving forward. As much as we think an 85" LCD would work, the cost to move up to 4K/8K is astronomical compared to the videos test setup. Anyone do a comparison, please send my way :)
Have you guys tried rear projection with the space between the screen and projector covered/blacked out? It might look better with all the ambient lighting and you may be able to increase screen size. You would lose a few feet of space though.
The main problem with rear projection would be getting good black levels on the image. Between the trouble of keeping all the ambient light from the video lights off of the screen and the fact that we'd be projecting through fabric rather than bouncing off of it. I've seen a few examples of others who have tried using rear projection for Virtual Production and the black levels seemed to suffer quite a bit. The UST projector with an ALR screen was our most sucessful attempt at getting a bright, sharp image with good black levels.
@@NextWaveDV They used back projection on Star Trek: Picard, on the Titan bridge stations (to get the curved screen look). Not a ton of information on it, but there are some bts photos floating about and some article somewhere. Very cool to see. And they had really good black levels. Not virtual production really, but it was used on screen, so kinda.
I wonder if you guys bought the $5000 HTC Vive Mars Camtrack system or buying a single unit Vive tracker and a base station would be enough for a camera tracking system for parallax. Thank you for sharing your video. Very very informative. 😊🙏
Great video guys! A lot of great information. I do have a few suggestions if you don't mind. I would try bringing down the foreground lighting to allow the projector to better light your scene thus emercing your talent into the background more. The bright studio lighting is separating you from the background a bit more than it should. I would suggest a 2nd projector pointed at the ceiling to further light your physical foreground subjects. A better low-light capable camera would allow you to capture foreground subjects with less noise while catching all of the realistic ambiance of the projector lighting. That being said I did appreciate the very useful info you in this video and thank you for doing the hard lifting for the rest of us.
Have you tried pumping a 2nd virtual camera facing backwards tied to the primary virtual camera and do a dmx lighting setup with pixel mapping for on talent contact lighting instead?
@@JustinLivingstondesign The basic idea if to pixelmap your light from the virtual world but aiming the receiving camera backwards to pick up the “contact lighting” Then you can project the lighting that would have hit the talent
I suspect the always higher black levels, relatively small size of the projector screen, etc will - in the end - make using the projectors limiting both because of the fov and the less than photorealistic look they give over a LED wall or traditional composite. Have you considered repurposing those projectors not to achieve final pixel in-camera but more to create the overall lighting and background environment reference in a much wider 180 set. I'm picturing the projectors creating whole virtual environment wrapping around not only for talent and reflections but to also project a traveling green screen that's only as large as it needs to be grabbage matted out later. You're probably rarely going to get a perfect real-time in-camera composite anyway and having the option to tweak your composite later in post can be very valuable.
While I agree that an LED wall will always be a more ideal option for Virtual Production, I think we were able to showcase that this projector setup is still a viable option in limited situations for a fraction of the price of an LED wall. We plan to use it for interviews, product shots, and simple lifestyle shots. For us, the whole point of this system is to have in-camera VFX to minimize our post production workflow.
@@NextWaveDV If you're going to keep to only those kind of shoots you probably won't have much of a roaming camera wide fov/background) so you might be okay. The limitation of black level difference between the actor and your background is also less of a issue if you aren't going for photorealism and could be embraced as a stylized/studio look. As far as the composite, what I'm thinking of is a third optiom thats combines all of the lighting advantages and quick minimal post work of a LED screen with the flexibility and image quality of traditional manual tracked compositing. (Ps. Even the guys with the multi million dollar LED screens are moving away from being forced to try and do everything in-camera to a system that can do both simultaneously using synced alternative frames)
this is innovation and creativity. I am looking for a company to provide training and showcase such an idea for an underdog filmmaker with a limited budget. Any recommendation?
Just an idea with lighting because I am curious: could one also use Philips Hue lights? or even led strips for that matter to recreate the right ambient lighting in realtime too, just like what an Ambilight TV does, but then for the filming environment?
Those projects are great at taking the color or the edges and mapping those pixles over to a led strip, but you'd only be getting the edge of frame. But, I wonder if you were to take the HDMI input and mapped the screen pixles over a matrix of pixles with something like wled if you'd get the same results for ambient color?
How is your ALR screen mounted?? I'm looking for an ALR screen that is "portable-ish" that I can use a truss to hold it up, but not having much luck with ALR screens
It's really hard to make a portable ALR screen. It has to be at the right angle and you want the material to be stretched tightly otherwise you'll get dark spots.
1:16 Virtual production is way cheaper than set creation at least in the long run, on top of that you can change a set in seconds and if you do have to do reshoots you still have the digital sets available. Yes virtual production is expensive for indies, but it makes some sets possible which would otherwise never ever been an option at all. Therefore we have more options at hand.
Probably more efficient to just rent the screens (or a virtual production studio) for shoots that require the effect, much like any other special gear. If a solution requires all kinds of compromises without being particularly cheap just to end up in an unrealistic image, at that point you might as well go with a green screen + Vive tracker setup and monitor the composite on set. Especially true for this implementation which doesn't even provide the dynamic lighting that is a major benefit of virtual production, so all it really seems to bring to the table is a baked-in background that will be a nightmare to balance. It's kinda the worst of both worlds tbh.
That Samsung projector is listed as a max screen size of 120" and you have a 150". Are there any downsides to pushing that screen size past what it's rated for?
Great question. At 150" the corners of the screen are slightly out of focus, but it doesn't cause any problems for the sake of virtual production since we typically keep the screen out of focus when we're shooting anyways. I wouldn't use it at 150" for a home theater, but for virtual production screen, 150" is totally fine.
They've done it in movies like Oblivion for the sky box. The challenge with multiple projectors is getting the the seam to blend, having a bright enough projector to cover an even larger area, and keeping the video lighting off of the screen. They don't make UST projectors that cover larger than 150" screens right now. I don't know if you could get ALR material in a bigger size either.
@@gearienoxcuses3936 No. The ALR effect is part of the weave of the fabric. You can get projector screen paint that has a higher gain but not paint that has any ALR properties.
Someone needs to admit the truth: filmmakers are not born but made. Molten pressed (thousands of them all looking and acting the same) from society influence and inevitably follow this career NOT because they are talented filmmakers, but became that they are shlubby or skinny, balding or bearded Athiests that are so self centered and sexually frustrated that they go into a fantasy chase to be big Hollywood filmmakers to make up for their inadequacies and insecurities. I’ve seen this reality far too often. For supposed non-conformists, their story plots are the same, always trying to copy famous filmmakers and get no story of their own is worth watching. They love filmmaking more then writing a good story.
Use the Sony FX3 camera. It has great low light video capture. This way so you can cut down on your studio lighting. Also, for ALR screen paint, try this company czcams.com/users/lostsandGODfeatured
Great work guys!
I got the big boy URSA as well still AMAZING!!!
good information for the film makers
This is really cool. I had bought a 4k Ultra short trow projector to do stuff like this, and was shocked at the price of ALR screens Lol! I took the cheap route and used white paper backdrop along with really dim lights, even so there was still a little spill that lifts the black levels a little, not ideal but fixable in post. I'm very impressed with what you can get away with using the ALR!
Yeah, we found that the ALR screen made it about 30% easier to light. It still requires control of the lighting, but the screen is minimizes spill just a little bit better.
thanks for sharing!
Hi,
I like very much virtual production video series you shared 👍
I'm at the beginning with all of this.
Curious to know whether I have to specifically have a camera which is able to output genlock ?
Does Blackmagic URSA camera you used in this video can output genlock ?
I was wondering about projectors replacing Led TV's.. thx for the video
great.
I'm your fan.
I would be curious if you have compared your LED projector solution with a 4K/8K tv solution. Is the contrast ratio and latency better on a tv screen, despite the smaller viewing-width?
This subject is whats keeping us from moving forward. As much as we think an 85" LCD would work, the cost to move up to 4K/8K is astronomical compared to the videos test setup.
Anyone do a comparison, please send my way :)
What converter do you use to capture live footage from camera into UE?
Have you guys tried rear projection with the space between the screen and projector covered/blacked out? It might look better with all the ambient lighting and you may be able to increase screen size. You would lose a few feet of space though.
The main problem with rear projection would be getting good black levels on the image. Between the trouble of keeping all the ambient light from the video lights off of the screen and the fact that we'd be projecting through fabric rather than bouncing off of it. I've seen a few examples of others who have tried using rear projection for Virtual Production and the black levels seemed to suffer quite a bit. The UST projector with an ALR screen was our most sucessful attempt at getting a bright, sharp image with good black levels.
@@NextWaveDV They used back projection on Star Trek: Picard, on the Titan bridge stations (to get the curved screen look). Not a ton of information on it, but there are some bts photos floating about and some article somewhere. Very cool to see. And they had really good black levels. Not virtual production really, but it was used on screen, so kinda.
I wonder if you guys bought the $5000 HTC Vive Mars Camtrack system or buying a single unit Vive tracker and a base station would be enough for a camera tracking system for parallax. Thank you for sharing your video. Very very informative. 😊🙏
Would need to read answer to this
Great video guys! A lot of great information. I do have a few suggestions if you don't mind. I would try bringing down the foreground lighting to allow the projector to better light your scene thus emercing your talent into the background more. The bright studio lighting is separating you from the background a bit more than it should. I would suggest a 2nd projector pointed at the ceiling to further light your physical foreground subjects. A better low-light capable camera would allow you to capture foreground subjects with less noise while catching all of the realistic ambiance of the projector lighting. That being said I did appreciate the very useful info you in this video and thank you for doing the hard lifting for the rest of us.
Totally agree!
sorry this is not a reply but my name is Miss Cassidy and I have an urgent question and I would love your opinion I appreciate it thank you
Have you tried pumping a 2nd virtual camera facing backwards tied to the primary virtual camera and do a dmx lighting setup with pixel mapping for on talent contact lighting instead?
Not yet, but it is something we want to try at some point.
What?
@@JustinLivingstondesign The basic idea if to pixelmap your light from the virtual world but aiming the receiving camera backwards to pick up the “contact lighting” Then you can project the lighting that would have hit the talent
I suspect the always higher black levels, relatively small size of the projector screen, etc will - in the end - make using the projectors limiting both because of the fov and the less than photorealistic look they give over a LED wall or traditional composite.
Have you considered repurposing those projectors not to achieve final pixel in-camera but more to create the overall lighting and background environment reference in a much wider 180 set. I'm picturing the projectors creating whole virtual environment wrapping around not only for talent and reflections but to also project a traveling green screen that's only as large as it needs to be grabbage matted out later. You're probably rarely going to get a perfect real-time in-camera composite anyway and having the option to tweak your composite later in post can be very valuable.
While I agree that an LED wall will always be a more ideal option for Virtual Production, I think we were able to showcase that this projector setup is still a viable option in limited situations for a fraction of the price of an LED wall. We plan to use it for interviews, product shots, and simple lifestyle shots. For us, the whole point of this system is to have in-camera VFX to minimize our post production workflow.
@@NextWaveDV If you're going to keep to only those kind of shoots you probably won't have much of a roaming camera wide fov/background) so you might be okay.
The limitation of black level difference between the actor and your background is also less of a issue if you aren't going for photorealism and could be embraced as a stylized/studio look.
As far as the composite, what I'm thinking of is a third optiom thats combines all of the lighting advantages and quick minimal post work of a LED screen with the flexibility and image quality of traditional manual tracked compositing. (Ps. Even the guys with the multi million dollar LED screens are moving away from being forced to try and do everything in-camera to a system that can do both simultaneously using synced alternative frames)
@@brettcameratraveler Can you tell me more about the synced alternative frames? That sounds really interesting.
Have you tried using an OLed screen TV?
this is innovation and creativity. I am looking for a company to provide training and showcase such an idea for an underdog filmmaker with a limited budget. Any recommendation?
I live and work in China in a similar field of work, I can help you with some very good led prices/contacts. love the video
What’s ur #?
Just an idea with lighting because I am curious: could one also use Philips Hue lights? or even led strips for that matter to recreate the right ambient lighting in realtime too, just like what an Ambilight TV does, but then for the filming environment?
Those projects are great at taking the color or the edges and mapping those pixles over to a led strip, but you'd only be getting the edge of frame. But, I wonder if you were to take the HDMI input and mapped the screen pixles over a matrix of pixles with something like wled if you'd get the same results for ambient color?
If you can feed DMX signals into your lights on some kind of way, you might be able to do so.
How is your ALR screen mounted?? I'm looking for an ALR screen that is "portable-ish" that I can use a truss to hold it up, but not having much luck with ALR screens
It's really hard to make a portable ALR screen. It has to be at the right angle and you want the material to be stretched tightly otherwise you'll get dark spots.
Hla cuando tendrán los subtítulos en español. Gracias
Great video :)
How to you Connect The projector to The unreal engine ? 🙏
Check out the other virtual production videos on our channel to see more of the process.
1:16 Virtual production is way cheaper than set creation at least in the long run, on top of that you can change a set in seconds and if you do have to do reshoots you still have the digital sets available. Yes virtual production is expensive for indies, but it makes some sets possible which would otherwise never ever been an option at all. Therefore we have more options at hand.
Probably more efficient to just rent the screens (or a virtual production studio) for shoots that require the effect, much like any other special gear. If a solution requires all kinds of compromises without being particularly cheap just to end up in an unrealistic image, at that point you might as well go with a green screen + Vive tracker setup and monitor the composite on set.
Especially true for this implementation which doesn't even provide the dynamic lighting that is a major benefit of virtual production, so all it really seems to bring to the table is a baked-in background that will be a nightmare to balance. It's kinda the worst of both worlds tbh.
That Samsung projector is listed as a max screen size of 120" and you have a 150". Are there any downsides to pushing that screen size past what it's rated for?
Great question. At 150" the corners of the screen are slightly out of focus, but it doesn't cause any problems for the sake of virtual production since we typically keep the screen out of focus when we're shooting anyways. I wouldn't use it at 150" for a home theater, but for virtual production screen, 150" is totally fine.
@@NextWaveDV That helps, thank you so much!
Do you know if anyone has tried to use multiple projectors to make a larger screen?
They've done it in movies like Oblivion for the sky box. The challenge with multiple projectors is getting the the seam to blend, having a bright enough projector to cover an even larger area, and keeping the video lighting off of the screen. They don't make UST projectors that cover larger than 150" screens right now. I don't know if you could get ALR material in a bigger size either.
@@NextWaveDV Is there a paint that can mimick the ALR effect?
@@gearienoxcuses3936 No. The ALR effect is part of the weave of the fabric. You can get projector screen paint that has a higher gain but not paint that has any ALR properties.
@@NextWaveDV thanks for the follow up!
How is the projector's fan noise?
The Samsung has very little fan noise that I've noticed.
I'm confused. Did I miss Sean's in and out ports. I did blink.
Are you guys looking for actors. Looking forward to sharing some great ideas i have.
do you have work :)
Someone needs to admit the truth: filmmakers are not born but made. Molten pressed (thousands of them all looking and acting the same) from society influence and inevitably follow this career NOT because they are talented filmmakers, but became that they are shlubby or skinny, balding or bearded Athiests that are so self centered and sexually frustrated that they go into a fantasy chase to be big Hollywood filmmakers to make up for their inadequacies and insecurities. I’ve seen this reality far too often. For supposed non-conformists, their story plots are the same, always trying to copy famous filmmakers and get no story of their own is worth watching. They love filmmaking more then writing a good story.
you spend half of the video talking!!!!!!! it gets boring real quick
Not boring to me!
Use the Sony FX3 camera. It has great low light video capture. This way so you can cut down on your studio lighting. Also, for ALR screen paint, try this company czcams.com/users/lostsandGODfeatured