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Vu's Virtual Production Kit & Unreal 5.5

Vu's Virtual Production Kit & Unreal 5.5

James Cameron and AI, VP For Indie Filmmaking

October 08, 2024

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Welcome to VP Land!

NAB NY is kicking off this week, along with Vu’s second Virtually Everything event happening today.

Speaking of Vu - we’ve got an exclusive demo video and interview about their newly announced Vu One Mini.

We shot this at their Tampa studio about a month ago, which is now right in Milton's path. Our thoughts are with everyone in central Florida as the hurricane approaches. Stay safe.

Alright, let’s get into it -

Unreal 5.5 & New Virtual Production Updates

Epic Games' Unreal Fest in Seattle took place last week. Check out our full summary of the opening session announcements.

For the breakdown here, here’s a quick high-level overview and key updates for virtual production.

Key Announcements

Unreal Engine 5.5 preview is now available, featuring improvements in rendering, animation, and mobile development.
Epic Games Store is expanding to mobile platforms, starting with Android worldwide and iOS in the EU.
A new digital asset marketplace called Fab is launching this month, supporting all game engines and digital content creation tools.
Epic is introducing "Launch Everywhere with Epic," offering a reduced Unreal Engine royalty rate (from 5% to 3.5%) for games that ship simultaneously on the Epic Games Store.

Virtual Production

Key improvements for virtual production include:

Evolution of virtual production from video capture card support to LED walls and in-camera VFX
SMPTE 2110 integration for in-camera VFX is now production-ready. SMPTE 2110 offers a cost-effective, low-latency, flexible solution for LED wall setups.
Addition of multi-camera support amd inner-frustum splitting for better performance at high resolutions
New Depth of Field compensation tool that correctly defocuses the LED wall for improved realism

What's Next

Epic announced that Unreal Fest will be moving to Orlando for its next event, scheduled for June 2-5, 2025.

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Vu’s $99K Virtual Production Kit

Vu just announced their latest virtual production product, the Vu One Mini.

This compact LED wall aims to democratize virtual production for smaller studios, corporations, educational institutions, and content creators.

Check out our exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Vu One Mini at their Tampa studio.

By The Numbers

12 feet wide by 7 feet high LED screen
1.8 pixel pitch
$99,000 price tag

Key Features

Mobility: The screen is on wheels, allowing easy repositioning within a studio.
Adjustable height: A pneumatic stand enables vertical adjustment for different shot compositions.
Plug-and-play: Unlike larger virtual production setups, the Vu One Mini can be powered by a standard wall outlet.
Integrated tracking: Built-in optical tracking eliminates the need for extensive setup or calibration.
Automated lighting: Side-mounted light bars can sync with on-screen content for enhanced realism.

We found that customers more and more were leaning towards the smaller units. And as we started to look at, like, what are some of the things that would make this even more practical and more usable for more people?

Tim Moore, CEO of Vu Technologies

The system can display pre-recorded video plates, AI-generated 2D images, and stock photos, powered by Vu's Virtual Studio kiosk and online platform.

What's Next

Vu Technologies is working on expanding the system's capabilities:

Enhanced lighting integration: The goal is to enable one-click setup of entire lighting schemes for different virtual environments.
New tracking modes: A "360" mode coming later will allow for more dynamic camera movements within virtual scenes.

▌Puget Systems showcases custom workstations optimized for VFX and world-building in Unreal Engine at NAB NY

👻 VIVE Mars CamTrack's BEST HORROR SHOT! competition offers filmmakers the opportunity to showcase their skills and win prizes, including B&H gift cards and a VIVE Mars CamTrack kits for students.

💻 Vizrt's TriCaster Vectar and TriCaster Now are now available in AWS Marketplace, simplifying cloud-based live video production for content creators.

🎬 James Cameron, renowned director and technology pioneer, joins the board of Stability AI, signaling the growing importance of generative AI in the film industry

💰 OpenAI's record-breaking $6.6 billion funding round, valuing the company at $157 billion, solidifies its position as the global leader in artificial intelligence and reflects the transformative potential of generative AI in the tech industry

🧔🏻‍♂️ Tim Brooks, co-lead on OpenAI's video generator Sora, has left to join Google DeepMind, potentially impacting the development and competitiveness of OpenAI's video generation technology