
Real-time rendering is helping one studio take virtual production to impossible heights.
In their latest project, the creators at Los Angeles-based company Impossible Objects were tasked with depicting an epic battle between characters from the upcoming video game, Diablo Immortal. But the showdown had to take place on the surface of a Google Pixel phone, set in the living room of a live actor.
Working with advertising agency Omelet, the team at Impossible Objects brought this vision to life using accelerated virtual production workflows to blend visual effects with live action. Using Epic Games' Unreal Engine and NVIDIA RTX A6000-powered Dell Precision 7920 workstations, the team created all the stunning cinematics and graphics, from high-fidelity textures and reflections to realistic camera movement and lighting.
These advanced technologies helped the artists make instant creative decisions as they could view high-quality virtual imagery rendered in real time.
We can build larger, photorealistic worlds and not worry about relying on outdated creative workflows, said Joe Sill, founder of Impossible Objects. With Unreal Engine and NVIDIA RTX-powered Dell Precision workstations, we brought these Diablo Immortal characters to life.
Real-Time Technologies Deliver Impossible Results Previously, to tackle a project like this, the Impossible Objects team would look at concept art and storyboards to get an idea of what the visuals were supposed to look like. But with virtual production, the creators can work in a nonlinear way, bridging the gap between imagination and the final high-resolution images faster than before.
For the Diablo Immortals project, Impossible Objects used Unreal Engine for previsualization - where the artists were able to make creative, intentional decisions because they were experiencing high-fidelity images in real time. Moreover, the previsualization happened simultaneously with the virtual art department and layout phases.
The team used NVIDIA RTX A6000-powered Dell Precision 7920 workstations - an advanced combination that allowed the artists to enhance the virtual production and creative workflows. The RTX A6000 GPU delivers 48 gigabytes of VRAM, a crucial spec when offline rendering in Unreal Engine. With more GPU memory, the team had room for more geometry and higher resolution textures.
Rendering would not have been possible without the RTX A6000 - we maxed out on its 48 gigs of memory, using all that room for textures, environments and geometry, said Luc Delamare, head of Technology at Impossible Objects. We could throw anything at the GPU, and we'd still have plenty of performance for real-time workflows.
Typically, this project would have taken up to six months to complete. But the nonlinear approach enabled by the real-time pipeline allowed Impossible Objects to cut the production time in half.
The video game characters in the commercial were prebuilt and provided by Blizzard. Impossible Objects used Autodesk Maya to up-res the characters and scale them to perform better in a cinematic setting.
The team often toggled between compositing software, Autodesk Maya and Unreal Engine as they ported animation back and forth between the applications. And as the project started to get bigger, Impossible Objects turned to another solution: NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling, an AI rendering technology that uses a neural network to boost frame rates and produce sharp images.
NVIDIA DLSS was incredibly important, as we were able to use it in the real-time workflow, even with characters that had high polygon counts, said Delamare. This solution became really helpful, especially as the project started to get denser and denser.
At the animation stage, Unreal Engine and NVIDIA RTX allowed the team to simultaneously update cinematography and lighting in real time. The end result was fewer department handoffs, which resulted in time saved and efficient creative communication gained.
With all of these advanced technologies combined, Impossible Objects had the power to create a more efficient, iterative process - one that allowed the team to ditch linear pipelines and instead take on a much more creative, collaborative workflow.
To learn more about the project, watch the video below:
Learn more about NVIDIA RTX technology in media and entertainment.
North America Stories
05/07/2022
The benefits of utilising open standards within the battlespace have long been discussed and advocated by the defence industry as a whole. Defence clearly recog...
05/07/2022
SAN JOSE, Calif. TiVo parent company Xperi has acquired Vewd Software Holdings Limited for $109 million through a mixture of cash and debt. Xperi says the acqui...
05/07/2022
LONDON Rise, the award-winning advocacy group for women in the broadcast media technology sector, is now accepting nominations for its annual Rise Awards, which...
05/07/2022
SHELTON, Conn. Anton/Bauer has expanded its Dionic 26V series of cinema batteries by working with ARRI to develop a new range of B-Mount batteries, chargers and...
05/07/2022
MUNICH ARRI today introduced LiOS2 software, offering new Sync, Cue and Optics Auto Adjust modes, for its Orbiter LED luminaire....
05/07/2022
Four-Time Oscar Nominee and 11-Time Goya Winner Alberto Iglesias Receives Honora...
05/07/2022
New Orbiter LiOS2 software update from ARRI for even stronger synergy between li...
05/07/2022
The second season of the European League Football is currently providing many ex...
05/07/2022
Broadcast microservices specialists nxtedition will showcase their powerful prod...
05/07/2022
Intinor, Sweden's leading developer of products and solutions for high-quali...
05/07/2022
Editor's note: This post is part of our weekly In the NVIDIA Studio series, ...
05/07/2022
Wow! Wow! Wow! American Tobacco is once again celebrating on campus and future partners being recognized as the best! Recently, several ATC tenants set a gold s...
04/07/2022
Ncam Makes Virtual Production & In-Camera VFX Tracking Accessible Down to the Da...
04/07/2022
Anton/Bauer Expands Dionic 26V Battery Series with New B-Mount Solution for ARRI...
04/07/2022
The metaverse and Virtual Reality (VR) has had the weight of a number of large big technology companies behind it in the last year; spearheaded by the likes of ...
04/07/2022
Anton/Bauer has expanded its DIONIC 26V series of cinema batteries. A range of ...
04/07/2022
As it returns to IBC, Cinegy, a premier provider of software technology for digital video processing, asset management, video compression and automation, and pl...
04/07/2022
Back to All News
Netflix Announces Suspenseful Romantic Comedy In Love and Dee...
04/07/2022
Back to All News
Love Is a Battlefield, and the Women of Mom, Don't Do Tha...
04/07/2022
Demographic data from multiple data providers will help power up the Nielsen Ide...
02/07/2022
Nearly 28,000 HERO10 Black clips from 131 countries were submitted for the chanc...
02/07/2022
Warner Bros. Discovery and American Airlines said they made a deal that will put content from Discovery Plus and Magnolia Network on the airlines in-flight ente...
02/07/2022
A+E Networks said it has cooked up a multi-platform programming deal with Buddy Valastro, the celebrity chef featured in TLC's long-running series Cake Boss...
02/07/2022
NBCUniversal said it had a record-setting upfront, with key parts of its business posting significant gains....
02/07/2022
KASA Albuquerque, the Telemundo station in market No. 48, has launched a local news and weather app for the Spanish-speaking audience. The Telemundo Nuevo M xic...
02/07/2022
The E.W. Scripps Co. named Jeff Kiernan VP and general manager of KTNV in Las Vegas, effective July 25....
02/07/2022
The plan to bring two West Coast college football powerhouses into the Big Ten Conference has brought Apple back to the TV-rights bargaining table, according to...
02/07/2022
Tennis great Chris Evert returned to ESPNs analyst roster Friday (July 1) after time off to be treated for ovarian cancer, which took the life of her sister.
E...
02/07/2022
ESPN plans to televise the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest live for the 19th consecutive year on July 4....
02/07/2022
PBS Kids will launch a new logo July 19, the first logo redo in two decades. The upcoming logo builds on an expanded graphics package that began rolling out la...
02/07/2022
The Biden Administrations loss in a Supreme Court ruling involving the EPAs ability to regulate power plants could be a victory for ISPs arguments that the FCC ...
02/07/2022
NEW YORK & MIAMI FuboTV and TelevisaUnivision have reached an agreement that will keep Univision's networks on the virtual MVPD, avoiding a potential blacko...
02/07/2022
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) has appointed Jeff Kiernan to the role of vice president and general manager for KTNV, Scripps' ABC affili...
02/07/2022
NEW YORK As more sports viewing shifts to streaming, NBCUniversal continues to reevaluate its strategies for distributing its sports coverage and has confirmed ...
02/07/2022
Award Winning Micro Budget Film The Land Completed with Blackmagic Design Came...
01/07/2022
By Stephanie Ornelas (Pictured: Frank and Lola)
Las Vegas is a vibrant city full of secrets and glamor. It's glitz and grit makes for a unique destination...
01/07/2022
MELBOURNE, Fla. - A L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) infrared instrument set to ...
01/07/2022
IBC is back for its first in-person gathering in three years, and so too is Future's annual IBC Best of Show awards program which celebrates the innovation ...
01/07/2022
ATLANTA Gray Television Inc. appointed Brad Moses the general manager of WTVG-TV (ABC) in Toledo, Ohio, effective July 25....
01/07/2022
National Geographic has tapped Karen Greenfield to fill the newly created position of senior VP of content, diversity and inclusion....
01/07/2022
STAMFORD CONN. The LPTV Broadcasters Association has appointed Peter Saad as the organization's new executive director. He is a seasoned attorney who has be...
01/07/2022
PlayBox Neo HD Playout with eMAM Go Live at TV5HD Thailand
Brie Clayton July 1, 2022
0 Comments
Accompanying diagram shows the MAM and playout workflow...
01/07/2022
Quidich Innovates Game-Changing Camera Solutions for Live Sports Broadcasts with...
01/07/2022
Phil Harrelson to Lead DI and New Dailies Services at Nice Shoes
Brie Clayton July 1, 2022
0 Comments
Nice Shoes has hired post-production veteran Phil...
01/07/2022
Center for Music Therapy to Partner with Underserved Communities in Berklees Bac...
01/07/2022
Berklee's Two Track Series Celebrates Pride' to Kick off Summer The popular YouTube series features students performing original music and exploring ...
01/07/2022
Esin Aydingoz Named Assistant Chair of Berklees Film Scoring Department An acclaimed TV, film, and video game composer from Istanbul, Turkey, Aydingoz starts ...
01/07/2022
DENVER Imagine Communications has appointed Diana Horowitz the company's vice president, strategic sales, advertising technology. In the newly created posit...
01/07/2022
Eurofins Digital Testing (EDT), in partnership with the Consumer Technology Association and National Association of Broadcasters, has announced the release of t...
01/07/2022
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. SES announced the successful launch of its SES-22 satellite onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX's Space Launch Complex 40 at C...