HTC Sent Me a SECRET WEAPON for Virtual Production

[Music] hello and welcome to this virtual production vlog my name is Matt workman and today we're gonna be talking about the secret weapon that HTC sent me from my virtual production studio second we're gonna be taking a tour of my virtual production studio here things have been changed we have a bigger green-screen third we're gonna be talking about the new virtual camera the new virtual vive camera that shipped in cinah tracer which is the app and program I make we're gonna end by talking about some high-end camera tracking solutions I've been talking with different manufacturers and want to just update you on how that project is kind of going along and so there's not gonna be any like new footage I'm actually waiting for some new gear so we're not gonna be shooting anything today but I'll plenty to talk about let's jump into it so number one what is this special secret weapon that HTC sent me I will show you right now to die it's amazing so all it is is a mount that is specifically made for the vive motion controller right so like well a big deal well if you saw my earlier rigs or you're trying this yourself you'll know that mounting this controller is a little bit wonky there's no quarter-twenty mounts like the tracker it's kind of difficult to do and if you're using clamps like I was you're always kind of at risk for like snapping this thing in half which is not good on a virtual production set you don't want to break your camera tracker and secondly most importantly is that this piece here was made by HTC's engineers to perfectly keep the controller flat and level and it's not it's not that straightforward to do that on your own if you're mounting it it has this kind of like interesting angle anyway zeroed out for this is a very specific thing and without this which has a little cord of 20 at the bottom of it it's pretty dicey to do it yourself do I have a ball head so we can continue a levelling but at least I kind of know where the level point is it's this little you know thing that could be printed out from the 3d printer they have the STL file they may release it but what we really need is a manufacturer in the film industry that makes accessories something like Redrock micro the kudos small react tilta wooden camera re not you know anybody like that to be paying attention and know that hey we need a little part like this and there's gonna be more and more parts like that as this ecosystem starts to come together thank you to HTC's for sending this to me I'm going to be using this actually as my primary pure virtual camera right so when I'm doing virtual camera in the Senate racer now or Unreal Engine I actually really prefer using the controller because I need these buttons I need these buttons to focus to change the focal length and whatnot and this is going to allow me to have a lot more controls immediately one issue with this mount is that currently the little trigger is kind of blocked by the mountie R just to keep it really secure there I can really use that trigger I actually use that for focusing in Senate racer which we'll talk about in a little bit so a second on the agenda I have upgraded my home studio yet again so let's do a quick little tour around I just kind of for me even I like looking back at these I just want to show you how my studio has evolved and how its laid out now compared to even like a couple weeks ago and I started this whole thing so let's begin the home studio tour over here is my new computer setup I have moved it a little bit and it now oversees the green screen set over there and I have this window blanked out with a sound blanket pretty funny and this is my little workshop here where I build different camera rigs but you see we got some GPUs it's kind of a mess but working on stuff goes there can can I keep all my tools in one place and like a pewter is right behind it so that's nice directly to my right is my little shooting alley here so this is where the cameras go usually where I'm standing and this is where the jibs gonna go as well so I'm probably gonna have to move that chill couch sad as we come over here now you can see my Blackmagic camera and this is my new green screen so it's hard to tell without someone in it perhaps but it's pretty big so we have two last two light backgrounds here panoramic backgrounds with the lastolite connection kit in the middle there's a really good job it's a little wrinkly but I'll tell you what keys out just fine and we have two really affordable muslin backgrounds just for the floor piece so this is my 180 set up here pretty happy with it I have my house lights on here but we have two lights lighting it pretty evenly and you'll see that we have a base station there right there we've got the base station there and let's see if I can film this I'm gonna back up a little bit the other two are right there so there you can see all four base stations right like that and that gives me a lot of coverage and they all see the trackers on most cases so that's the new configuration we'll continue the tour over here I am planning on having people come here I'm filming a little bit so this is my little green room back here so people can change into the mocap suit if they need to do some other stuff I've got some chargers and just a whole bunch of junk but it's kind of like a little green room so leaving the green room the changing room we're gonna go over here to the equipment room this is the green screen again pretty decent size and over here is my little equipment nook with a bunch of equipment this is where my boxes are hanging out and that's pretty much the studio tour so that is the studio tour I don't think I can get any bigger in this space I'm curling in and I'm really happy with it I've got my big green screen I've got my like little film cabinet I even have like a little changing room and I've got my computer a little Spacey I can film YouTube with and I'm really happy with this space working out really cool so we're gonna get a jib we're gonna continue to add even crazier stuff into here but that's the current state of it number three we have shipped our first Senate racer version that has a vive virtual camera in it so you saw early in this series I set up the vibe for the first time I made a virtual camera in Unreal Engine and I was like hey I can probably do this in cinah tracer and that is exactly what I did I spent a couple days programming it testing it and then I shipped it and from what I hear it's working pretty well there's a lot of issues with usability to keep like designing but overall people can connect to it and it's working really well so if you want like a really indie like entry level version of virtual production Cinna tracer is basically going to be the easiest way in you're gonna get Cinna tracer on your computer that's gonna install through Steam you're gonna have steamvr and then you just need a vive you can use the controller to start and you're gonna be able to do some virtual camera stuff with some pre-made characters pre-made sets right just kind of limited stuff but it gets you going that's the idea with Cinna tracer is that it's like a quick version of previous and virtual production Unreal Engine it's a quick entry-level way of doing it so I'm really happy that it's in there and I wanted to share some community work that's out there the people have shared of them using Cinna tracer and the virtual camera sorry so I have to read the shadows from my iPad I don't have everyone's names memorized here but shout-out to omen film Co one of the first people to really show the system working he's using a vibe controller and recorded with an animus sumo I think monitor really cool demos going on there shout out to mark D films who tested it with the valve index controller so it works at the valve index controllers which I thought it might that's pretty cool and shout out the future is now using a vibe tracker I don't know if I'm gonna have the clip in time for that and also shout out Olaf blah morris as I have you say a last name bro we talk a lot but I don't know how to say the last name he tested it with the vibe tracker and Senate race or retro camera all operational I'm pretty excited about that number four high-end camera tracking solutions so what I would say is if you're looking to get into individual production or virtual protein at all that you should probably get a vibe either for yourself or for your company if you're not familiar with Unreal Engine at the moment you can use Cinna tracer which is like the program that I make and you can try it out and do some virtual camera and eventually maybe some mixed reality as well but once you kind of prove to yourself that it works in Senate race or it works in Unreal Engine with a vibe you might want to be thinking about how do I step this up to a professional level right in Unreal Engine I want to do an LED wall I want to do a big green screen shoot like you do perhaps already but you want to do virtual production you want to do mixed reality you want to have really high quality tracking data well the vibe eventually does fall off in quality you're gonna get a lot done from the beginning to go from nothing to vibe it's like a huge step I know for most people but to go to the next level you're going to need to start looking at some higher-end camera tracking solutions so I've been talking with some manufacturers who make these high-end solutions I've used some of them myself never set them up but I've been talking with them about this kind of like indie production movement that were kind of got going here and about this youtube series and generally the content I make you know all over the Internet and we thought it would be a really cool idea to show setting up a really high-end camera system and then show how good the fidelity is even if it's in like a little studio like mine you can still see the difference between a pro system with lens profiling and really high fidelity genlock tracking in Unreal Engine and really compared to the vive and show you how you set it up what's the difference and if we're allowed to talk about cost as well cost is kind of like you know a flexible thing it depends on your studio and what you need but we can kind of maybe start to Ballpark how much do these high-end systems cost how do you set them up what do they look like and importantly I think for a lot of people who have communicated to me that they're looking to buy these systems what is the difference between them there's not much information out there you can talk to certain companies that consult and install them but in general this kind of virtual production industry has been a little bit secretive until now all of its binges like R&D and just for like big studios but now it's really starting to come down where it's gonna be done at the indie level and some studios may even go for the high-end camera tracking systems just to have perfect tracking so let me know in the comments below if that's something you're interested in we're gonna keep showing the indie way right the vive and indie cameras and and keeping things kind of DIY but I know for you know a certain portion of the people that are watching this they're interested in like hey how does an end cam work how does a Moses work how does this type work what are the differences how do you set them up and really just see them in action I'm interested to see them in action and selfishly just want to kind of play with the kit but I know that for this industry to kind of grow we need to talk about the indie entry level and also the high end and the full spectrum and so people can just understand this like they understand like regular filmmaking like we kind of know how much does a camera cost and lenses how much Delights cost right how long does it take to set them up how do you edit it right how do you go into After Effects and do chroma keying and add a background so we need that I believe we need that same kind of information out there even if it's kind of generally like how do you do virtual production in Unreal Engine and Kia how do you track the camera what if you're doing like a techno crane move and it's a huge studio and you know the vibes aren't gonna work right what else can you have this information needs to be out there for this to really kind of just continue to grow and especially I know a lot of people are anxious to get into LED walls that is the most expensive in the most high-end but we're going to attempt to cover that it does rely very heavily on very good camera tracking and lens tracking so with the vibe I will show you in the future what it looks like with it and it's pretty cool off the bat but it does in my opinion probably fall off pretty hard if you were to shoot against a really big LED wall you're gonna want to go the high-end system you're gonna want perfect tracking genlock because the screens get gen locked you're gonna need like really nice lens profile and you're gonna want the whole package probably so again let me know in the comments if that's something you're interested in if there's a specific system you want to see reviewed and talked about I have the resources to reach out to them and maybe they would be interested in doing a demo no promises we'll find out so that wraps it up for this vlog sorry I didn't get to do any like shooting a cool testing I do want to do some stuff with the rococo suit I have some interesting virtual production tools have been developing I think with an xbox controller for that but the face stuff for Cinna tracer and I'm gonna continue to do what I do which is develop weird virtual production previous tools in Unreal Engine and thanks so much for watching if you're interested in following up learning more and kind of really joining this community I really recommend you joining the Facebook group that is linked below there is a very very wide range of people there now we have like the veterans of the virtual production industry that worked on like Avatar and Mandalorian and we have a lot of the manufacturers there too now so dope don't go on there and be sure talking equipment or software those developers are there too so keep that in mind this is users and developers all coming together from the film industry the VFX industry broadcast virtual production augmented reality from all over and that's kind of the ecosystem that virtual production brings together you're gonna be have the compositor from like the mandalorian also there with a DP who's trying to set up their home studio right all in the same space so just keep that in mind be respectful in that community there's a no warning band policy I've had to get rid of a couple people already on the admin by the way people they're acting dumb on the internet ninja that's been here for a long time if you're acting stupid and it's my judgment you're just gone okay but just keep in mind manufacturers developers filmmakers beginners hobbyists students they're all in this group here kind of growing and we need everyone in it so be cool be chill come hang it on the Facebook group I'll see you guys the next vlog [Music]

Channel: Cinematography Database

Views: 30,500

Keywords: cine tracer, cinetracer, unreal engine, ue4, previz, previs, virtual production, virtual cinematography, htc vive, vive tracker, virtual camera, blackmagic ursa mini pro G2, virtual reality

Id: cceau0-2-ew

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 18 2020