Free download: Reality Engine
Posted on Mar 5, 2021 by FEED Staff
Sponsored editorial
Zero Density is offering free use of its photorealistic virtual set and VFX renderer
Virtual studio applications aren’t new – as far back as the nineties, green screens combined with dedicated hardware produced effective live graphics and virtual sets. But in today’s world of powerful processors and infinitely flexible game engines, real-time, live visual effects have reached the heights of photorealism.
Zero Density has leveraged Unreal Engine technology to provide one of the broadcast industry’s leading solutions for high-end for virtual sets. From its birth as an R&D start-up in 2014, the company has grown to become a major software provider of real-time graphics and visual effects for top broadcasters, including The Weather Channel, Fox Sports, Brazil’s Rede Globo, Sky News Arabia and NHK in Japan. With the world unexpectedly forced to embrace virtual and remote production even more, Zero Density tools have been taken up by live events, esports and even education.
“Without us telling them, people are finding new ways of using Zero Density – in new industries and new applications,” says Zero Density’s head of communication, Birim Yamanlar. “We can’t wait to see what else they come up with.”
We want people to understand how real-time node-based compositing works
Zero Density provides a suite of tools for creating the world’s best real-time effects and virtual sets. Its Reality Engine tool is a real-time broadcast compositing system; Reality Keyer is an image-based keyer that works on GPU; Reality Editor is an Unreal Engine 4 extension that allows UE4 users to easily drive the Reality Virtual Studio platform; and Reality Hub enables full control, monitoring and integration of virtual sets.
What’s more, Zero Density has decided to put its high-end compositing power into the hands of creatives everywhere. Real-time compositor Reality Engine is now available as a free download from the Zero Density website. Reality Engine’s node-based visual effects pipeline features video I/O, keying, compositing and rendering on a single machine for creating Hollywood-level VFX in real time. The new free release gives full access to the Reality Engine for non-commercial use.
“I believe Zero Density is the only out-of-the-box, ready-to-go-on-air virtual studio system,” says Kuban Altan, Zero Density co-founder and vice-president of research and development. “We want to grow our user base. We want people to understand how real-time, node-based compositing works.”
Reality Engine is sophisticated, but not hard to use. For someone with a grounding in Unreal Engine, there is virtually no learning curve. Video tutorials and other webinars are always being added, making it easy for newcomers to the platform to get the grounding they need to create their own content.
It’s hoped that opening up Reality Engine to the wide world will not only help to build awareness of Zero Density’s technology, but will also raise the bar of the global skill set around virtual sets and live compositing technology.
“What we offer with this is a full-feature, Unreal-native, real-time, node-based compositor with unrivalled keying,” says Altan. “When users grasp what they can achieve with Reality, they won’t want to use any other tool.”
Download Reality Engine now at: zerodensity.tv/break-free-with-zero-density.
This article first featured in the Winter 2020/21 issue of FEED magazine.
