How We’re Reimagining Unreal Engine Virtual Production for Smarter, Sharper Results
JUNE 10 2025
Virtual production has changed the game—but behind the scenes, it’s still evolving fast. While LED walls and real-time engines like Unreal make on-set magic look effortless, there’s a ton of complexity behind every pixel.
At Cause and FX, we’ve found a smarter way to tackle one of the biggest headaches: how to deliver jaw-dropping visuals without relying on live rendering. And it starts with rethinking how we use Unreal Engine’s nDisplay.
Wait… What Is Unreal Engine Virtual Production?
In case you’re not living and breathing VFX, here’s the everyday-language version:
Virtual production is a way of creating film or TV scenes using giant LED screens instead of green screens. Instead of adding backgrounds in post-production, you can show virtual environments on set, live.
It looks amazing. It saves time. And it’s powered by Unreal Engine, a real-time 3D tool originally made for games but now wildly popular in film.
But there’s a catch.
Trying to drive real-time content across massive LED stages—especially when they’re curved or cover tens of thousands of pixels—can quickly become a technical nightmare. You’re pushing huge files through live systems. One glitch, and the whole shoot stalls.
For global teams working across time zones or departments, live rendering can be a bottleneck instead of a breakthrough.
So How Are We Using Unreal Engine Differently?
Here’s the Cause and FX way:
Instead of using nDisplay to run content live, we use it to render high-resolution image sequences offline—EXRs, ProRes files, and more. These are final-pixel files that are distortion-mapped, frustum-aligned, and ready to play back flawlessly on LED walls or projection systems.
Think of it like this:
- Instead of rolling the dice on a live feed
- We hand over fully rendered, ultra-sharp visuals
- That we can tweak, colour-correct, and composite as needed
- And deliver as media-ready content, prepped for plug-and-play
Why This Workflow Works
By using Unreal Engine’s nDisplay in this way, we’ve unlocked a hybrid model:
- The speed and scalability of real-time engines
- The polish and control of traditional offline rendering
Here’s what that unlocks for us—and for clients:
✔ Asynchronous collaboration
Teams in different time zones can work from the same files—no live linkups needed.
✔ Guaranteed image quality
No crashes, no dropped frames, no “we’ll fix it in post.” What we render is what you get.
✔ Creative control
We can route rendered sequences through our compositing pipeline for final tweaks and finishing.
✔ Flexibility on set
With media-ready content, LED walls become playback devices, not render systems—reducing complexity during shoots.
Real-World Use Case: LED Volumes at Scale
On large-scale virtual production shoots, LED walls are getting bigger, more complex, and more demanding. Content often needs to be stitched across multiple curved panels, warped to match camera frustums, and mapped with perfect pixel accuracy.
Trying to drive that in real-time can eat up processing power and invite errors.
Our workflow means we can pre-render Unreal Engine virtual production content that’s ready to run across massive LED volumes—no surprises, no lag. Just high-quality, high-resolution imagery every time.
Why It Matters for the Industry
As virtual production grows, studios need smarter ways to scale. Real-time engines like Unreal are powerful—but they don’t need to be live to be effective.
Our approach keeps all the advantages of Unreal Engine—speed, realism, adaptability—while removing the fragility of real-time pipelines. It’s a win for directors, producers, VFX teams, and DPs alike.
Final Word: This Is Just the Start
We’re not interested in doing things the usual way. At Cause and FX, we’re finding smarter ways to work with real-time tools like Unreal Engine—not just for show, but for real, production-level outcomes.
And using Unreal Engine for virtual production rendering instead of live playback? That’s just one example.
