Vizrt - Viz Engine 5
Category Broadcast Graphics
Scalable, automated graphics. What once demanded too much time and too much effort with a high risk of failing is now a new world of opportunity for producers – Viz Engine 5 makes it efficient and convenient to produce for multiple platforms and use multiple virtual graphics techniques turning pain into possibility. Designed to take the trouble out of live graphics production, Viz Engine 5 introduces Adaptive Graphics, an intelligently automated way to deploy graphics to multiple output formats simultaneously. Adaptive Graphics is a single workflow, multi-platform content delivery system that automatically adjusts resolution, format, and layout to support specific display devices, ensuring the graphics are optimized for the viewer.
This revolution of real-time graphics enables graphic artists to create once and publish multiple times – saving time, reducing errors, and improving production quality. Once templates are set up for the desired outputs, content creators can be confident that graphics will be impactful, readable, and adjusted to suit any destination. Adaptive Graphics also ensures a better look and unified identity across all platforms, protecting the most valuable asset of any media provider: its brand. Viz Engine 5 also offers the most advanced integration with Unreal® Engine 5, making it possible to blend the two render paths into a single and powerful graphics workflow that is greater than its component parts. This pioneering capability provides artists with previously unimaginable creative options; built from the seamlessly interwoven assets from both render blades in real-time, in the same scene. While Viz Engine 5 is brand new, its predecessor, Viz Engine 4, has seen widespread use to facilitate the creation and flow of graphics – and its functions are indispensable in building realistic virtual sets. BBC Sport chose Viz Engine 4, along with Unreal Engine 4, to create a seamless studio environment with easy operator control.
One of the challenges the BBC needed to solve with its virtual studio was creating an operator-friendly workflow and streamlining content changes. Before using Unreal Engine, the graphics teams created graphics, waited for them to render, and then shared them with partners to review and then iterate. Viz Engine’s native integration of the Unreal Engine using Viz Arc’s control application enabled the team to create next-generation quality 3D content in real-time, cutting down rendering time and allowing the producer to focus on the story being told. “Creating a virtual world allowed us the luxury to be more creative and find solutions to visual variety in a more productive way,” said Sally Richardson, lead director for the Winter Olympics, BBC Sport. “For Beijing, we created a unique space with great variety. The virtual presentation also helped us address some of our sustainability goals.” The virtual studio implementation required a much smaller crew onsite in Beijing.
As a result, fewer production team members traveled to help save budget and reduce their carbon footprint for the project. Because of what they accomplished for the Winter Games, there is now more demand amongst teams at BBC to use the virtual studio than ever. Viz Engine offers native integration of the Unreal Engine, and the Viz Arc control application is the only augmented reality control system in the market that allows for seamless control of both render pipelines – so the producer can focus on the story being told, not the specifics of how the graphics are rendered. Consolidating multiple full production lines into only one with multiple outputs enables graphics artists to spend more time focusing on creating more original material, and broadcasters to streamline productivity. Viz Engine’s completely revamped integration with the Unreal Engine offers a workflow and output so seamless it is easy for artists – and looks effortlessly natural to audiences.
Virtual graphics designers can now leverage the capabilities of Unreal Engine in large-scale virtual environments, perfectly blended with detail-rich interiors and objects as well as data-driven graphics. With this integration, artists have the possibility to leverage their skills using both of the world’s top render engines at will, with the simple drop of a menu. Viz Engine 5 is a major step forward in Adaptive Graphics production and photorealistic imagery. It enhances the use of Unreal Engine 5 in broadcast workflows, and it precisely delivers graphics to any size display from mobile devices to cinema-sized screens and beyond. This is just the beginning of a journey that provides Viz artists and designers with tools for unrestrained creativity.
