VR & AR Technology is Fueling Game-Changing Sports Production
Jim Doyle from NewscastStudio goes into detail on how Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technology is game-changing for sports production.
AR/VR and sports are a natural combination, so it is not surprising to see more and more use of this technology. However, it is the integration of gaming engines, like Epic’s Unreal and Unity, into Augmented Reality and Virtual Sets that is the real game changer. Highly developed real-time render engines, such as Unreal, are able to present viewers with hyper-realistic imagery in the virtual space. These sets and designs look real, bridging the realism gap for broadcasters and audiences alike. For AR sports designers this also allows for more creativity, as their designs are no longer limited by the capabilities of a traditional Computer Graphics (CG) engine. Plus, importing their designs into a gaming engine like Unreal is simpler and quicker, as it reduces the time usually allocated for texture baking.
The use of game rendering in virtual sets is just the beginning. Dubbed interactive mixed reality, new entertainment formats that mix physical and virtual objects with characters and people in real-time are poised for explosive growth. However, gaming engines were never designed to work in broadcast. For example, Unreal was not designed to render graphics (polygon counts, textures, specular lighting) in real-time and does not fit natively with broadcast signals that must correspond with the slower frame rates of SMPTE timecode. The game, team, and player stats and data parsing that are essential for sports production are typically not offered by a gaming engine. This challenge can be addressed by integrating a game renderer with a mainstream CG renderer, letting broadcasters use the same tracking data simultaneously. Like AR/VR and sports, game rendering with CG functionality is a perfect combination for the eSports market, delivering not only realistic virtual sets, but also character rigging and motion tracked animation.
Click here to read the full article on NewscastStudio
AR/VR and sports are a natural combination, so it is not surprising to see more and more use of this technology. However, it is the integration of gaming engines, like Epic’s Unreal and Unity, into Augmented Reality and Virtual Sets that is the real game changer. Highly developed real-time render engines, such as Unreal, are able to present viewers with hyper-realistic imagery in the virtual space. These sets and designs look real, bridging the realism gap for broadcasters and audiences alike. For AR sports designers this also allows for more creativity, as their designs are no longer limited by the capabilities of a traditional Computer Graphics (CG) engine. Plus, importing their designs into a gaming engine like Unreal is simpler and quicker, as it reduces the time usually allocated for texture baking.
The use of game rendering in virtual sets is just the beginning. Dubbed interactive mixed reality, new entertainment formats that mix physical and virtual objects with characters and people in real-time are poised for explosive growth. However, gaming engines were never designed to work in broadcast. For example, Unreal was not designed to render graphics (polygon counts, textures, specular lighting) in real-time and does not fit natively with broadcast signals that must correspond with the slower frame rates of SMPTE timecode. The game, team, and player stats and data parsing that are essential for sports production are typically not offered by a gaming engine. This challenge can be addressed by integrating a game renderer with a mainstream CG renderer, letting broadcasters use the same tracking data simultaneously. Like AR/VR and sports, game rendering with CG functionality is a perfect combination for the eSports market, delivering not only realistic virtual sets, but also character rigging and motion tracked animation.
Click here to read the full article on NewscastStudio
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