On-set virtual production (OSVP) or also known as virtual production or virtual studio is a technology for television and film production in which

LED panel A LED display is a flat panel display that uses an array of light-emitting diodes as pixels for a video display. Their brightness allows them to be used outdoors where they are visible in the sun for store signs and billboards. In recent ...

s are used as a backdrop for a set, on which video or computer generated imagery can be displayed in real-time. With careful adjustment and calibration, an OSVP set can be made to closely approximate the appearance of a real set or outdoor location. OSVP can be viewed as an application of

extended reality Extended reality is a catch-all to refer to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Sometimes the abbreviation “XR” is used to refer to both. The technology is intended to combine or mirror the physical world with a "digital twin world ...

. OSVP contrasts with virtual studio technology, in which a green screen backdrop surrounds the set, and the virtual surroundings are composited into the green screen plate downstream from the camera, in that in OSVP the virtual world surrounding the set is visible to the camera, actors, and crew, and objects on set are illuminated by light from the LED screen, creating realistic interactive lighting effects, and that the virtual background and foreground are captured directly in camera, complete with natural subtle cues like lens distortion, depth of field effects,

bokeh In photography, bokeh ( or ; ) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Bokeh has also been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Differences in lens aberrations and ...

and

lens flare A lens flare happens when light is scattered or flared in a lens system, often in response to a bright light, producing a sometimes undesirable artifact in the image. This happens through light scattered by the imaging mechanism itself, for ex ...

. This makes it a far more natural experience that more closely approximates

location shooting Location shooting is the shooting of a film or television production in a real-world setting rather than a sound stage or backlot. The location may be interior or exterior. The filming location may be the same in which the story is set (for ex ...

, making the film-making process faster and more intuitive than can be achieved on a virtual set. To render parallax depth cues correctly from the viewpoint of a moving camera, the system requires the use of

match moving In visual effects, match moving is a technique that allows the insertion of computer graphics into live-action footage with correct position, scale, orientation, and motion relative to the photographed objects in the shot. The term is used loos ...

of the background imagery based on data from low-latency real-time motion capture technology to track the camera. OSVP developments include Disney's StageCraft system, developed in-house at

Industrial Light and Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pro ...

for the

Disney+ Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned and operated by the Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television se ...

series ''

The Mandalorian ''The Mandalorian'' is an American space Western television series created by Jon Favreau for the streaming service Disney+. It is the first live-action series in the ''Star Wars'' franchise, beginning five years after the events of '' Retur ...

''. Industry organizations including

SMPTE The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the m ...

, the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...

and the

American Society of Cinematographers The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), founded in Hollywood in 1919, is a cultural, educational, and professional organization that is neither a labor union nor a guild. The society was organized to advance the science and art of cinem ...

have started initiatives to support the development of OSVP.

References

Cinematic techniques Visual effects Mixed reality * {{computer-graphics-stub