WHAT A FUN SHOW!
This year’s PRE-NAB event was easily the most interesting, exciting, and tech-heavy one we’ve ever put on. The air crackled with anticipation, and our eyes gleamed with excitement. We blasted mid 2000s pop-punk louder than the guests upstairs probably wanted, ate way too much pizza and beer, and most of all, got together with our friends and colleages and hung out like we used to for the first time since 2020. It was truly special.
We chose to highlight the NewTek Tricaster, Unilumin DV LED, and the Unreal Engine, and how they relate to virtual production and Esports. We were thrilled to witness the Las Vegas Inferno, LV’s professional gaming team, compete in thrilling Valorant and League of Legends matches. The energy in the room was contagious as we cheered on our favorite players, fully immersed in the exhilarating world of competitive gaming. It was amazing to see players at the top of their game, as it were, to compete at a high level but still have so much joy in their seriousness.
As the JB&A PRE-NAB Show unfolded, we were privileged to experience a perfect blend of virtual production marvels and the adrenaline-fueled realm of Esports. It was a testament to the power of technology, creativity, and passion when they intersect.
Interested in our workflow? Click here to download it!
JBANDA Esports Workflow PRE-NAB 2023
Virtual production...without tracking?
Rick Puleo is known accross the industry for his vast NewTek and broadcast knowledge (as well as his razor sharp wit), and he didn’t disappoint this year! By utilizing Tricaster automation/macros and TouchOSC, Rick put together an amazing low-tech way of getting multiple angles to display on an LED wall which match the camera they switch to. How is this possible you ask? Well, why not let Rick explain?
We started working on this project back in February and originally only considered using Unreal Engine 5 for it, which we did find to be successful. We created clusters of virtual cameras that matched the angles of our real life cameras and scattered them across our virtual set. By using TouchOSC, we were able to sync the TC2 Elite and our Dell blade running UE5, so as we switched cameras in the TC, we were able to switch what was being displayed on the LED wall, thus matching the angle of our virtual background with the angle of the camera chosen at that point.
What we learned
The most critical thing we found was that you have to deal with one thing in either Unreal or Tricaster-based virtual production switching: latency. We spent hours pouring over our calculations for the amount of delay we needed to delay either the Unreal or TC macro firings, and even through our best efforts, it still wasn’t perfect. Could our workflow have been perfected with more gear and more time? Absolutely. But we were able to accomplish a similar look and feel to Unreal Engine virtual production without having to jump into it OR NewTek’s virtual set technology. Since our whole concept of this workflow was aimed at Higher Ed and K-12, a super basic but effective flow was in order, and we think, if we do say so ourselves, we nailed the proof of concept.Â
We could not have pulled off such an amazing show without our 30+ vendors that came to show the latest and greatest of their innovations this year. We would like to thank the entire JB&A roster for their hard work and awesome presence at the show that made the whole thing absolutely worth it. Here’s to a brand new technological banger next year!
