PC gaming the future of Hollywood?

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Hollywood movies are loaded with special effects. Over time, these special effects have gotten, well, more special. Movies are much more realistic than just 10 years ago. This is the result of improving technology and directors constantly trying to push the envelope.

Chroma keying is a very popular effect in Hollywood dating as far back as 1898. You probably know it by the more common name "green screen".

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Most Hollywood movies and shows use a lot of green screen filming. This allows you to film special effects and locations that wouldn't be possible without using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). CGI is very expensive and even more expensive to do well. Green screen allows producers to create practical effects and avoid the aging effects of CGI.

The Mandalorian changed the game even more by using LED walls driven by the Unreal gaming engine.

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This technology is new but has significant advantages over green screens and CGI. The biggest advantage is lighting, while using green screens you flood characters with green light which has to be removed and countered in post production. By using giant LED walls you are able to film with natural looking lighting and color.

The Mandalorian used a 20 foot high room with 270 degree LED screens spanning 75 feet across. This allows them to film any scene without using green screens allowing actors to actually see what is going on around them.

One of the unique advantages of this technique is the game engine can move the camera around with the actors producing much more realistic environments without tedious post production work. Rotaing the camera around characters is a common technique used in 3D gaming. To do this while filming is considerably harder and takes a lot of high end equipment to handle it. Unreal has released an interesting post on the techniques and challenges with this technology.

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This technique also allows producers to have complete control over weather effects, lighting, and location as they shoot in an enclosed environment. One of the biggest benefits outside of lighting and 'spill' is location shooting. No longer do you have to travel to the Alps to film with a realistic snowy mountain background. The costs to build such a system are high but it becomes a cheaper solution in time once you factor in a lot of the savings on travel, props, and lighting.

I highly recommend you check out some videos on this technology, it is quite facinating and will really change the way movies and shows are produced in the future.


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9 comments
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That screen for sure was ‘cheap’ and the admins as well as the software technicians must be very cheap as well :))))))

The great thing about technology is, that we can get more things done faster as persons of eagerness and qualification. The unreal engine is a very special case actually, as it’s free to use and has a lot of ‘Epic’ (lolz) features by default. But they will charge you royalty for selling the end products and your free api is limited without standardizes upgrade options.

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Unreal has been doing some mind blowing stuff. Have you taken a look at MetaHuman yet? Between that and Quixel’s high resolution 3d scans of objects things for both gaming and movies are going be interesting.

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The world is advancing so is technology the brain behind building those equipment to make movie production look real is great. The last time I watched a movie called we can be heroes I was amaze and thinking how do they go to space to make this movie and I remember technology has advanced

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Wow, this technology is amazing. It would save a lot of time in movie production, most especially, travel expenses to location. Very easily, they can project what kind of location view they want. I am really impressed.

This means, most of the movies that would be produced in the coming future would not take so long as it used to. That’s so sweet 😋😋😋😋.

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Great post. It is quite amazing isn't it? I used to be (part of me still is I guess) a visual effects and CG nut and after watching the Mandalorian I had to check out the behind the scenes stuff (I often watch that first LOL). While I was watching I was wondering how they had so much budget for all the FX. I was blown away that they were pulling off real-time "video room" effects on set. I didn't see that coming at all. It was incredible to see how it was done in real-time. The game engines certainly aren't just for games anymore :-)

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Imagine as an actor, being literally part of that world, instead of standing within a wall of green and having to imagine everything.

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I would think it would make a huge difference. It does look a bit ridiculous.

DrStrange-Green-Screen.gif

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😂

But on a serious note: I loved the Mandalorian. Without spoiling, the ending of season 2 was exactly what Star Wars needed.

I actually just finished watching Episode V and VI yesterday and the day before, since my gf never watched the original trilogy (I know, I know - next will be preloges), and even though the graphics have obviously aged, the amount of story, heart and soul that was put into the movies and the way the sequels literally destroyed the characters whole generations of ppl loved (Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, 3PO, etc).

There are a few videos on youtube about the orginal plans George had for 7-9. 1-3 were about Anakin, 4-6 about Luke and 7-9 should have been about Leia. I even saw a few references in Episode VI about Leia becoming a Jedi.

Anyway, I really hope (& believe) Jon Favreau and ‎Dave Filoni‎ save Star Wars.

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