Maximize the Value of Unreal Virtual Production for News

When Epic Games’ Unreal Engine first broke into the TV world as a 3D creation tool for virtual productions, it represented such a leap forward in graphics quality that many early adopters treated it like a novelty. Networks used it to put on once-in-a-lifetime events with bespoke designs, high-budget external creative and production teams, and lots of fanfare. But for the other 99% of their programming, they’d leave Unreal sitting on the shelf. In doing so, they missed a valuable opportunity to differentiate their newscasts from the competition, and they failed to drive ROI in the big picture.

Now, broadcasters are looking to do more with Unreal — to demystify the virtual production workflow so that their designers, producers, and journalists can leverage this powerful storytelling tool to engage their audience every day. Together, Chyron’s PRIME VSAR and CAMIO graphics template management solution do just that, bringing the power of the Unreal Engine into a MOS-integrated workflow with built-for-broadcast design, editorial, and live production capabilities.

Streamline Unreal Scenes for Everyday News Graphics

If your broadcast station or group has invested in Unreal design talent, you’ll continue to produce those unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime shows. You want to leverage the Unreal Engine to bring that excitement to your audience. However, day-to-day news storytelling involves a hefty volume of graphic assets that require constant repurposing to accommodate different stories, data, and media. Without the right workflow, there’s no way for a designer to keep up.

PRIME VSAR makes it easy – even in today’s fast-paced, data-driven world of live production and news storytelling – for designers to meet these demands without getting overloaded. Simplified design tools, such as a native procedural primitives library adapted for broadcasters, enable rapid creation of data-driven graphics and text. Template-based graphics for weather forecasting and virtual screen media playout ease management of virtual studios.

The most exciting part of all is just how easy it is for your editorial and production teams to repurpose these graphics directly from the newsroom – no designer required.

[READ: Three Ways to Leverage the Unreal Engine in Your Studio]

Producer-Driven Unreal Virtual Production

With PRIME VSAR and CAMIO, you can convert Unreal scenes into editable and reskinnable templates that producers and journalists can use like any other news graphic, with elements that are easily replaceable within the newsroom. With this template-based workflow, the Unreal Engine seamlessly becomes part of the same process you use to drive everyday news programming.

Working with PRIME VSAR and CAMIO, producers and journalists can browse a visual VSAR scene asset library and build rundowns directly within your NRCS of choice. They can generate scene previews and push real-time scene updates through to live playout from within the NRCS. They can enrich newscasts with incredible virtual elements that capture viewers’ interest and keep them watching for more.

You don’t need a full-time, specialized creative or art director to manage every little thing you want to do with virtual production. Instead, your designers, journalists, and producers can create, fulfill, and drive Unreal virtual productions with the familiar tools they’re already using.

[WATCH: PRIME VSAR – Overview – Unreal Virtual Production and Augmented Reality]

Empower Creatives, Producers, and Journalists to Do More

Because PRIME VSAR deskills and demystifies the process of bringing Unreal graphics into your newscasts, you no longer need a high level of expertise to drive daily Unreal virtual productions. With minimal alterations to their existing workflow, producers and journalists who put together programs can themselves give live production a massive visual upgrade. Your Unreal designer has more time to focus on creating interesting virtual elements that can be used broadly within your template-based graphics workflow, or to prepare mind-boggling bespoke graphics for your next blowout broadcast event. In short, each member of your team is able to contribute in the way their skillset suits best.

[READ: How CAMIO Empowers Producers and Journalists to Bring Better Stories to Air]

Scalable From a Single Studio to an Entire TV Network

The most valuable element of an efficient workflow is its ability to grow and scale. To that end, a single CAMIO hub can draw assets and control playout across multiple PRIME VSAR engines. With this capability, you can build intelligent distributed workflows across an entire station network.

CAMIO is ideally suited to networks and station groups that employ hub-and-spoke or spoke-to-spoke architectures to distribute and manage assets. Perhaps you already use this model to promote effortless collaboration between art, editorial, and production departments across different stations. Now, with PRIME VSAR, you can add Unreal scenes to the mix, quickly and easily introducing stunning virtual elements into newscasts across the group.

Unreal Graphics, PRIME Simplicity

PRIME VSAR allows you to pair the incredible creative horsepower of the Unreal Engine with a suite of production tools that producers and journalists can use to design, control, and drive productions from the newsroom. Through CAMIO, PRIME VSAR easily plugs into your newsroom workflows to enrich day-to-day programming, and it delivers the capabilities you need to power those over-the-top broadcast events with mind-bending virtual elements that surprise and amaze.

Visit the PRIME VSAR landing page to see the latest blog articles, videos, and details about the recent 1.7 release – which brings support for Unreal Engine 4.26, rapid-to-create and easy-to-manage graphic templates, as well as significant upgrades to the PRIME VSAR engine.