Technology-driven Virtual Production

Abstract

The “subversive” technological drive of game engines for virtual film production is gradually being valued by filmmakers. This technical advantage is manifested in the game engine’s (1) real-time rendering of final pixels (speed and image quality), (2) “post-production in advance” and multi-pipeline for project production, (3) open-source code sharing and plug-ins for VFX. Based on the advantages, this article takes the mainstream Unreal Engine (UE) and Unity as the research objects to clarify the application prospects of game engines in four aspects: digital humans with high fidelity, real-time ray tracing in complex scenes, in-camera VFX, and remote collaboration in the post-pandemic era.