HTC's Virtual Production Solution VIVE Mars CamTrack Hits the Market

HTC's new virtual production product VIVE Mars CamTrack is available for general purchase in the US, Canada, and Europe, with availability in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to follow in the coming months.

VIVE Mars CamTrack enables studios of all sizes to create professional-grade virtual production content more easily, flexibly, and affordably than ever before.

In addition to expanding the commercial availability of VIVE Mars CamTrack, the Mars team has also added support for the popular Free-D protocol to better serve the virtual production community. Free-D is an industry standard protocol for the camera’s positional data which is used by established AR and XR solution providers. Free-D support is a part of HTC's ongoing effort to make virtual production more accessible to studios everywhere, by giving users more options and flexibility for implementing their camera tracking data.

VIVE Mars CamTrack has the following highlights:
Plug-and-play with Free-D and Unreal Engine’s LiveLink, with no additional installation required
Highly compact, lightweight, and portable, supporting a wide range of shoot environments
Includes a full suite of professional-grade features at an affordable price, lowering the barrier of entry for studios of all sizes to leverage virtual production
Multi-cam tracking, with support for up to three cameras
Easy-to-use calibration for nodal offset and lens distortion
One-click origin reset
Genlock and Timecode support, offering synchronized output between real and virtual actors
Robust wiring to reduce latency

"We're excited to see the amazing content that the virtual production community will create with VIVE Mars CamTrack," said Raymond Pao, Senior Vice President at HTC VIVE. "By expanding the availability of Mars and adding Free-D support, we’re bringing the power of virtual production to tons of studios and individuals worldwide, in a small package and at a price point that won't break the bank. Everyone who wants to bring their vision to life on the screen should have the opportunity to do so – that’s our goal behind VIVE Mars CamTrack."

Putting together a virtual production shoot has traditionally been costly and time intensive. VIVE Mars CamTrack greatly streamlines this process by shrinking a complicated workflow into a compact, plug-and-play, modular device. Furthermore, Mars’ portability makes it easy to take on the road and shoot in many different scenarios – opening even more creative possibilities for scenes.

VIVE Mars CamTrack will be shown during the SIGGRAPH 2022 conference in Vancouver, Canada, in cooperation with Departure Lounge and Arcturus.

mars.vive.com