23 TECHFEED Virtual Sets
VIRTUAL TV
VooSport and BeTV decided to go virtual for their L’Europe des onze programme covering European football. The show was powered by Reality from Zero Density. The Belgian pay TV channel was based in Keywall studios in Charleroi, Belgium. “Dreamwall designed the set and powered it with seven Reality Engines on seven cameras, including one crane,” says Kaçmaz. “The weekly show has already recorded more than 320 hours live from the virtual studios. They wanted to transform the game nights with seamless commentaries with 3D graphics, interactive elements and visually stunning content.”
environments and, to this end, the company has created an internal, software-based keyer as part of its virtual studio software. “The new advanced keyer provides superior results for keying transparent objects, contact shadows and fine details,” says chief operations officer Orsolya Dormon. “It can handle broadcast-quality real time in 4K with GPU-accelerated rendering at a fraction the GPU usage. We have also made a leap in generating realistic shadows. Apart from contact shadows, Aximmetry can cast virtual shadows on the talent and we can combine these seamlessly with the real-life shadows generated by the talent itself.”
A mixed reality environment is the standout feature in White Light’s virtual studio tool, SmartStage. “Our solution omits the need for green screens by instead utilising LED video walls, so the content is really there,” says White Light’s Andy Hook. “This makes the system much more user-friendly. You do not need to be trained in broadcast, you can just walk on set and the interaction, eyelines, reflections, lighting and colour is all real and more natural.” NEXT BIG THING “Making real-time ray tracing a reality has been the biggest advancement of this year,
ON ZE BALL VooSport and BeTV use virtual sets for L’Europe des onze, transforming the programme with 3D graphics
promising true-to-life scenes,” says Zero Density’s Kaçmaz. In this case, software has had to catch up with the hardware. “Nvidia announced the RTX cards dedicated to real-time ray tracing last year,” he adds. “Zero Density and Nvidia partnered with Fox Sports for daily presentations inside a real-time ray- traced virtual studio at NAB 2019, which was solid evidence it can be done. At IBC2019, NEP The Netherlands and Zero Density showcased a superior real-time ray-traced virtual studio. Creative and developer teams have not adopted this tech completely yet, so it is not mainstream, but will be starting from 2020.” Spanish virtual sets company Brainstorm is also implementing the hardware developments found in the Nvidia RTX GPU for photorealistic content generation in its latest InfinitySet. As well as
WITH GROWING ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS, BROADCASTERS NEED TO USE MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY PRODUCTION METHODS. THERE IS NO NEED TO CUT DOWN FORESTS TO BUILD 3D VIRTUAL SETS
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