Virtual Production Foundations

Course details

Looking to ramp up your production skills and put them to use in a virtual environment? In this course, video production expert Noah Kadner introduces you to the most important and commonly used technologies and techniques for professionally crafted, virtual video production.

Explore production fundamentals such as green screen and LED volumes, key optical concepts, camera frustum, rear projection, tracking, cinema lighting, and pixel mapping. Ian takes you through a step-by-step overview of a basic pre-production workflow, covering previs and techvis, storyboarding with virtual cameras in game engines, creating highly realistic assets with photogrammetry, and much more. Along the way, get tips for professional-looking on-set film shoots and live compositing, regardless of your background or current skill level.

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome to virtual production foundations
02 - Who this course is for and how to best use it

1. Virtual Production

03 - LED volumes and virtual production
04 - Live demonstration of an LED volume
05 - Examples of recent virtual productions

2. Key Virtual Production Technologies

06 - Virtual production in an LED volume vs. green screen
07 - What is driving the massive increases in LED volume usage
08 - Create and use a camera frustum
09 - Survey of camera tracking technologies
10 - Cinema lighting in an LED volume
11 - Applying pixel mapping to sample and match backdrops to lighting

3. Pre-Production Workflow

12 - When to use previs and techvis
13 - Storyboarding using virtual cameras in game engines
14 - Exploring the marketplaces for environments and models
15 - How a virtual art department differs from a traditional one
16 - Optimizing for real-time performance
17 - Creating highly realistic assets with photogrammetry
18 - Visual effects in virtual cinematography
19 - Using virtual scouting to explore an environment
20 - Evaluating the best remote collaboration tools

4. On-Set Techniques and Roles

21 - Key crew positions in the brain bar
22 - Identifying optical challenges in an LED volume
23 - Color grading in a volume
24 - Optimizing image quality with color science
25 - Live compositing in an LED volume

Conclusion

26 - Opportunities for veterans and newcomers in virtual production
27 - What s next in virtual production