Prolycht updates spotlights for virtual production

Some custom firmware work that Prolycht has undertaken for Stargate Studios in LA highlights the flexibility of its lights for LED volume work.

Prolycht has been working on custom firmware that allows its Orion 300 FS and forthcoming 675 FS RGBACL LED to be better integrated into virtual production. The lights are already a solid choice for LED volume work thanks to high light output, as well as the ability of the Hyperlight RGBACL engine’s ability to maintain accuracy, power and saturation right through the visible spectrum. So these are tweaks — the Orion LEDs already offer fast DMX and Artnet control — rather than complete makeovers, but they’re interesting ones.

The Prolycht Orion 300FS RGBACL colour spotlight

The work’s been undertaken for Stargate Studios, which is using multiple Orion 300 FS lights in a ring around the ceiling of its virtual sets, all controlled by a lighting technician using dedicated software which marries the lights to the virtual world on the LED wall. Being adjustable in real-time for both colour and intensity gives the Orion the ability to mimic the real hard lighting that may exist in a scene. This is especially useful when, for example, replicating bright lights and passing street lighting during in-vehicle scenes.

Stargate Studios Founder and CEO, Sam Nicholson ASC, explains: “You really do have to have complete control of the lighting in the real world to match the lighting in the virtual world, and that’s where the Orion 300 FS lights really come into play…they have a very hard light if you want it, they can also go soft, and you can truly control it.”

The new 675 FS is a larger fixture with a single unit design that is expected to ship around September time.

So, what more did Stargate need by way of control. Top of the list was changes to the way the light communicates with the MadMapper software used by Stargate Studios, but below that were things that many other people could find useful and will hopefully find their way into wider circulation. 

These included improved colour consistency between the virtual pixels on the LED wall and the light from the Orion 300FS, and — and we like this — the ability to use the iPhone as a real-time colour picker to manually sample an area of the screen and reproduce it’s changes using the Orion 300FS.

Prolycht says it now has several partners in the virtual production space where the 300 FS has found a home as a key or sunlight replacement on smaller sets, and as a useful effects fixture on larger ones. And the company says it is working on further customisations to help create even more realistic virtual scenes, some of which will hopefully trickle down to the increasing number of people looking for good lights for virtual productions.