Multi-Stage Virtual Production Made Possible With SP At Trilogy Studios

Trilogy Studios, the largest cinematic volume in Texas, is a 30,000-square-foot facility with three advanced stages: a main stage, a car-processing stage for automotive shoots and a commercial stage.

This setup provides filmmakers with limitless creative potential. During the design phase, Trilogy Studios collaborated with specialist integrators Optic8, and lead engineer Roman Schoissengeier-Nagel, to bring to life a complex virtual production infrastructure. Stage Precision's SP software was chosen for its ability to deliver seamless, scalable, and unified data management across all three stages, equipping Trilogy Studios with the tools needed to offer clients an innovative and adaptable virtual production environment.

"The focus was on creating a unified control solution across all three stages," explains lead engineer Roman Schoissengeier-Nagel. "Each stage required high-precision camera tracking and the ability to integrate dynamic content, leveraging tools such as Unreal Engine and Pixera. Building a system that could handle complex multi-stage shoots was also essential." Stage Precision provided a robust tracking and data solution to meet the challenge of unifying control over diverse hardware, including OptiTrack systems, static and moving LED walls and client-provided cameras.

The team developed the production infrastructure for Trilogy Studios' three independent stages, each tailored to specific production needs. Stage 1, the largest cinematic stage, features an LED screen that is 157 feet long and 23 feet tall, providing the scale and scope for complex immersive scenes. Stage 2, the car-processing stage, incorporates six moveable LED walls and five motorised ceiling screens, allowing for the creation of a realistic immersive screen layout. Stage 3 is a more compact area suited to general commercial productions. SP software was implemented across all three stages to streamline the management of tracking data, with Stage 2 particularly benefiting from SP's capability to handle multi-screen tracking and freeze screen positions for refined adjustments, given its moving LED screens. All three stages use OptiTrack for camera tracking.

In addition to SP's standard features, including advanced lens calibration, data visualisation and data manipulation, its ability to unify control and data across the three stages was a game-changer. "I've been an avid user of Stage Precision software since its early days, so it’s always been a part of my virtual production (VP) toolkit," said Schoissengeier-Nagel. At Trilogy, we took the VP use case to another level by using SP as the central control across all three stages, enabling interaction between different sets."

The connection between the stages allows clients to test content on a smaller scale before moving to the main cinematic stage, increasing efficiency and maximising studio bookings. Schoissengeier-Nagel added: "If they're filming on Stage 1, they don’t have to stop filming to test something. They can just move the content over to Stage 3 and experiment there."

Stage Precision's Gateway tool, which enables remote control of Windows devices directly from SP, was essential for accessing render nodes across the three stages. "We used a centralised NAS for storing Unreal Engine content, and with some custom coding, we were able to distribute this content to the various nodes," continues Schoissengeier-Nagel. "Using SP with Gateway allows us to run scripts and download content to the nodes remotely, which is a huge advantage when managing multiple systems."

The customisation available through SP transforms the studios into a canvas for creativity and experimentation. At Trilogy, the team built a treadmill BPM encoder to feed treadmill speed data into SP, which triggers Unreal Engine content to play at the correct speed to create realistic walking animations.

The implementation of SP gives Trilogy Studios the infrastructure needed to be a highly adaptable, efficient VP facility, with capabilities that meet the demands of both blockbuster productions and indie projects. "There’s really nothing else that can handle all of this simultaneously," confirms Schoissengeier-Nagel. "As VP system designers, it’s crucial for us to have an agnostic control centre that’s scalable and limitless. SP is just that - a Swiss army knife, and if it were up to me, I’d specify it for every project."