What is XR Virtual Production Technology?
In the past two years, XR technology has begun to enter the public’s vision. More and more concerts, conference sites, film shooting sites, TV programs and other scenes have begun to use high-tech and realistic XR technology, so as to achieve more possibilities for creation. With the help of 5G, the popularization of Extended Reality (XR) technology is a general trend. By constructing a virtual world and interacting with the real world, it finally realizes the perfect integration of virtual and reality.
XR (Extended reality) is a term used to describe the environment or interaction behavior that combines virtual and real elements. In addition to what is generally believed to include AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), and MR (mixed reality), XR also has a special meaning in film, television, radio, and live entertainment production. At present, XR has become the mainstream of the virtual studio industry. In the industry description a few years ago, XR is more like the general description of AR and VR technology. It can be used to refer to an integrated system containing virtual and real worlds, or even equivalent to a specific motion capture technology, AR application or VR game. In the field of content production, it is specifically referred to as the workflow including LED display, camera tracking system and powerful graphics engine. It is a virtual production method that places performers in the virtual world in real time without green screen and post production process.
What role does the LED screen play in XR virtual production?
In the current XR virtual shooting project, LED display screen is often used as the scene simulation environment to take the place of traditional green cloth to shoot virtual films and TV with texture. From the data of picture quality, edge, refresh rate, gray, super color and so on, small pitch LED has already entered the world and settled in various studios, solving the problems brought by the early and late stages of traditional green cloth.
The rise of XR technology and the combination of LED display screen make virtual production shine in the film and television production industry
With the rapid development of the LED display industry, innovative elements are emerging, and many new opportunities for development and applications are also increasing The reason why LED display screen is widely used in virtual production is not only because it is more consistent with XR technology, but also because it has a good help for actors to play their acting skills and video post production. For XR video production with LED display screen as the background, the first step is to use real-time rendering technology to restore the photo level dynamic digital scene on the LED display screen, build the shooting scene, output synthesis through the media server, use the camera tracking system to locate the space and location information, map the spatial relationship between the person and the scene in real time, present and output a virtual scene without dead corners in real time, The actor can directly interact with the virtual visible scene. Compared with the traditional non physical performance, this kind of scene with physical reference can make the actor experience a more real sensory performance environment and enable the actor to quickly enter the play.
In the traditional green screen shooting environment, it is often necessary to spend a lot of time on fine matting, and repair the problem of color overflow. Compared with the traditional green screen, the LED screen solves this problem very well. The shooting team can interactively play with the LED screen in the 3D environment created. In this process, the shooting team can not only edit the playing content in real time, but also accurately track the pixels, and perspective correct the high-resolution rendered 3D images.
After the accurate camera tracking system is added, The camera starts to move around the real and virtual elements seamlessly combined in the LED environment, so that the audience observing through the camera’s perspective can have a fusion immersion illusion.
Secondly, since the shooting scene is generated by the LED display screen, it supports the introduction of conventional pictures, 360 ° panoramic pictures and videos, 3D models, and external camera signals into the studio, enabling the scene to switch freely at any time. The LED display stage technology and playback technology greatly reduce the time and difficulty of post production for the visual effects department, and thus the time cost and shooting cost of video production are greatly reduced.
Moreover, the LED stage combined with XR technology presents more precise highlights, reflections and bounces on the film reflective clothing. Therefore, shooting with LED display screen combined with XR technology can make the director feel the real-time picture directly on the scene, shorten the workflow, greatly reduce the workload in the later stage, improve the production efficiency and create more magic scenes according to the director’s needs.
In addition, virtual production solves the transportation cost and environmental waiting cost of the production crew for location shooting. In short, the production crew can make and modify the required environment at any time without having to wait for rain or sunset.
The virtual film and television production technology of LED display combined with XR technology has changed the traditional film production method and brought more possibilities and innovations for film production. With the rapid development of China’s film industrialization process, it will be a matter of time before the work system of virtual space expansion is popularized to the film industry production line. At that time, the market demand for LED displays in this field will increase significantly.
What Can Milestrong Offer?
If you are finding a professional LED display solution provider with matural XR virtual production technology for your next campaign, you need to get it from the AR Series of Milestrong’s LED Display. Milestrong AR Series products include indoor and outdoor applications. Under the criterion of fast installation, its control box, HUB board, receiving card and modules are all used hardwired connection for quick removed and plug-in. It features with all rental led display’s necessary processes including full-viewing mask, current-sharing for power backup, anti-collision PCB board and so on.