Get Started with Virtual Production Today: 2 Easy Ways

virtual production has grown like crazy but most people don't understand it enough to take the leap today we're gonna talk about two great options for first project and most important components to really sell it [Music] hey it's shawn with remedy and form studios i get so many phone calls and they all start out the same way i saw mandalorian i want to use emerald engine but really after talking about the project probably half of them don't even need unreal engine and you can just use something like video plates or photo plates so this makes me realize a lot of people don't understand their options for virtual production so let's talk about the pros of unreal engine the pros of video and photo plates and how practical elements and lighting really sells the effect pro plates plate pros what are the pros of the plates you know what people aren't talking about plates no video plates it's a great cost effective option that looks great for virtual production since unreal engine is a bit newer there's not a huge library of high quality content out there which means you're going to spend more time trying to find that content or you have to pay somebody to make those assets for you which kind of drives the cost up with video and photo plates there's many websites out there with a lot of high quality content or you can go and capture your own plates or build something out in something like after effects or photoshop another benefit of using video and photo plates is the speed of your production because you've already made all your background choices on the shoot day all you have to do is worry about blending the physical environment and the lighting with your background the other aspect that we consider video and photo plates is more abstract motion graphics kind of footage you know the flashing lights for like a sports hype video or just creating any kind of abstract footage that isn't real life that fits your production i'm sure at some point you've had a hard time finding a location that matches your vision but with unreal engine you can create exactly what you want with unreal engine you have full control of your environment we're actually in an unreal environment right now in this scene we can move every chair table tree car we can move the sun around we can add lights take away lights unreal engine is so powerful you can literally change anything another benefit is virtual location scouting we need to do that in our studio or virtually online it allows us to fly through environments set our locations and that way on the shoot day we click a button and we instantly load into that location in normal engine you have full camera tracking which ensures that your virtual camera and your physical camera are always aligned so the height of your camera and the distance the subject is always accurate you input the camera's sensor size and focal length which ensures that your compression is always accurate to the lens listen listen listen none of this matters if you don't care for blending the virtual environment with the physical environment what i mean lighting and physical set deck the last thing that really helps sell this look is matching your virtual lighting with your physical lighting let's check out some examples this was one of our first projects that we ever shot in here uh balance is one of my favorites we brought in some real christmas trees and combined that with the virtual christmas trees in the background right here you can see behind the scenes shot i basically had five trees the entire day and depending on what angle we shot at we just kind of shift all those trees around and it seemed like a completely different part of the force what really helped sell this one was the atmosphere we added some haze it just helped kind of like soften the transition between the physical set in the virtual set then also added that snow because it's also sewing in a virtual set that's really helped tie this one together so this next one was a more in-depth uh physical build out we actually brought in full ground cover with leaves we added some plants right on the edge of the wall to help blend with some of the virtual plants right there also with this one we were able to transition to our next scene really quick because the whole entire ground cover was all on tarps so we roll the tarps up pull them outside and we're on onto the next shoot all in all it just really blended really well so check out the space scene it looks incredible but it's probably one of the more simple shots we've had in our studio uh here you can see the final scene i was slowed down a bit and honestly you'd have no idea how simple this set was and it just sold so well and this is really the power of virtual production how quickly you can do a setup and how minimal the setup has to be to really have a great effect uh you see the astronaut kind of float up to the window uh which appears to be like a space station but really all it is it's a playground bubble where the astros kind of like walking up and floating to it and i mean it just sold so good uh this shot right here honestly it's pretty badass it's uh so she's actually an astronaut she's been a space doctor proctor uh it was really cool to have her in the studio because she's just like wowing over over the wall so it's cool to see somebody's been to space i think virtual production is like the coolest thing ever this is a great example of using abstract motion graphic we just found this on envato so it's really affordable to find but also just the way it's made it seems like there's a lot of depth to it but really it's just a video playing on our led wall but because our wall is curved we'd shoot a side profile shot that looked like a completely different stock plate what's nice too with this shot is as a light is kind of coming you know up towards her we were able to cue on some of her physical lights so it looked like that light is kind of like wrapping around her body which also helps sell the effect like she's in the environment so this is a great example of how good something so simple can look they really don't have any physical elements but they really focused and dialed in the lighting that's what makes it look so amazing for this wider scene they did they brought in like one little like fake plant put up on a pedestal just we had something as a foreground object to pass by um we had some little like aperture mcu pucks make a little fire effect for his face and again it's it's very simple practical elements and then the lighting that really just helps sell the scene so for this shot they had a very clear vision of what they want everything to look like they created their background and their foreground stuff in after effects we shot the background in camera and they were able to track in all the foreground elements in post so with this they went out and shot some driving plates around town we brought that in on our led wall and what really makes the lu all great for driving scenes is all this natural reflection that you get in the glass that makes it seem really realistic so for this project we used armor engine and video plates we used unreal engine to create this cool moody garage scene and then we shot video plates in five different cities brought that footage back here to the studio and we could shoot this whole entire project in one shoot day because this project was in in unreal engine we were able to move every single element in the scene we uh there were some drums we moved around there's some graffiti on the walls we would change the brightness on the tools in the background off those virtual lights but then also we're able to make our physical lights kind of match the virtual lights in the scene so one thing that helps with these plates is we know we have a stand in when we shoot the plate and that way we bring that plate into the virtual environment we have our physical actor kind of line up with the um stand in that we did with the plate and that really ensures that all the scaling is correct also on this we can tell the lighting you know on this one in the video point the lines coming from the left side from outside these windows so then on the physical set we then brought the lighting in from the left side as well so that way our lighting on our physical set and our virtual set were blended that just really helped sell the effect this is another project where we used unreal engine and also used uh video plates the opening sequence is in this kind of retro garage and then all these other shots are actually just photo plates um you know when you have these tighter shots with quick movement really with these scenes there's very minimal physical objects in the scene it's mainly just the photo plates in the background but really the lighting is what really just makes this scene just really seem realistic there are a lot of ways to be successful in virtual production it really comes down to your project needs if you have a smaller budget or you want to dip your toes in virtual production using plates is a great option if you have a little bit bigger budget you want full control then unreal engine is great for that ultimately it's about blending the lighting in your physical set with a virtual environment it's going to make your project look amazing if there's something that you want to learn more about let us know in the comments below so we can help you on your journey see you next time [Music] okay just take it just take it

Channel: REMEDY

Views: 6,913

Keywords: atlanta video production, georgia video production, atlanta production companies, commercial video, video production, brand video, remedy films, best video production company in atlanta, content marketing, digital media agency, video production company, digital marketing agency, commercial video production, brand storytelling, branding agency, marketing consulting

Id: ijVg04V1QDk

Length: 8min 7sec (487 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 19 2022