Virtual Production for Beginners

Biro Florin

Virtual Production for Beginners

Biro Florin
7h 23m
41 modules (view curriculum)

$29/month
When billed annually.

  • Total Time:

    7h 23m

Description

Green screen virtual production is how the next generation of high-end content gets made, and this course takes you from zero to running your own studio. Across 9 chapters and over 10 hours of video, you'll learn the full pipeline: green screen versus LED, stage design, lighting, keying with the Ultimatte, building environments in Unreal Engine, and camera tracking for moving shots that actually feel real.

You'll get a 100-page workbook with exercises for every lesson, hard-won tips and tricks from years on set, and a full business chapter on turning these skills into real income, whether you're becoming the go-to virtual production engineer, building a full studio, or running a lean pop-up service. AI is reshaping what's possible in production, and the people who can blend it with real cameras, real talent, and real craft are the ones who'll stand out. This course gets you there.

Modules

--Chapter 1-- What Is Virtual Production?

09m

You’ll learn what virtual production really means, without the vague industry jargon. By the end, you’ll understand how real cameras, real subjects, and digital environments come together in one workflow.

LED Vs Green Screen

13m

You’ll compare LED walls and green screen in a practical way, so you can understand where each setup shines and where each one creates problems. This will help you choose the right approach for the kind of productions you actually want to make.

What Is Unreal Engine?

11m

You’ll get a simple breakdown of what Unreal Engine does and why it sits at the centre of so many virtual production setups. You’ll come away knowing what role it plays, even if you’ve never used it before.

Real Time Compositing

10m

You’ll see how live action and virtual backgrounds are combined in real time during a shoot. This gives you the bigger picture of how virtual production becomes usable on set, not just in post.

What You Need To Get Started

12m

You’ll learn what equipment and connections you actually need to build a basic working setup. Instead of guessing, you’ll see the core signal chain and understand what each piece is doing.

--Chapter 2-- Choosing The Right Stage Size

10m

You’ll learn how to think about stage size based on the shots you want, the lenses you use, and the space you need around talent. That means you can avoid building something that looks fine on paper but fails in practice.

Choosing The Right Stage Shape

11m

You’ll see how different stage shapes affect camera movement, lighting coverage, and usable shooting angles. This will help you choose a layout that fits your productions instead of forcing every shoot into the same setup.

Materials And Construction

08m

You’ll learn which build methods and materials are actually useful for a stage that needs to look clean on camera. You’ll also understand how construction choices affect finish quality, durability, and how easy the stage is to maintain

Understanding Green Spill

08m

You’ll learn what green spill is, why it shows up, and how it can ruin an otherwise decent image. More importantly, you’ll see how to reduce it before it becomes a problem in your composite.

Choosing The Right Paint

08m

You’ll learn why paint choice matters more than most people expect when building a green-screen stage. You’ll understand how brightness, finish, and washability affect both your key and the long-term usability of the stage.

--Chapter 3-- Lighting The Talent

13m

You’ll learn how to light your subject so they feel grounded in the final scene rather than pasted onto it. This gives you a practical way to think about shape, direction, and realism before you worry about the screen itself.

Lighting The Green Screen

11m

You’ll learn how to light the screen evenly enough to make keying easier and more reliable. You’ll also understand what uneven lighting does to your image so you can spot the problem early.

DMX Lighting Control

13m

You’ll see how DMX helps you control lights in a more repeatable and professional way. That means faster resets, more consistent setups, and less guesswork every time you shoot.

Studio Lighting Setup

14m

You’ll learn how to build a studio lighting layout that gives you flexibility without creating chaos on set. By the end, you’ll have a clearer idea of how to design a setup you can actually reuse.

--Chapter 4-- PC Requirements for Unreal Engin...

10m

You’ll learn what kind of computer you need to run Unreal Engine for virtual production work without constant bottlenecks. This helps you judge whether your current machine is realistic for the workflow or likely to hold you back.

Navigating UE & Data Flow

21m

In this lesson, Ed from Virtual Division walks through the rendering engine's interface. From the viewport and outliner to the content browser, so you can confidently find your way around the editor. You'll also learn how video, tracking, and lens data flow into the engine and work together to create seamless virtual production composites.

UE Performance, Latency & Image Quality

19m

In this lesson Ed from Virtual Division gives you the essential checks to run before any live shoot, from monitoring real-time frame rates and GPU performance to identifying latency issues in your pipeline. You'll learn how to configure post-process settings for clean, neutral backgrounds and manage color spaces so your virtual and real-world imagery match seamlessly.

Options to create environments

11m

You’ll explore the main ways to get virtual environments into your workflow, from using marketplace assets to building custom scenes. That gives you a realistic sense of the trade-offs between speed, cost, and creative control.

Compositing Options

11m

You’ll learn the main compositing routes available to you and where each one fits best. By the end, you’ll understand why the right workflow depends on your setup, budget, and the kind of result you need.

--Chapter 5-- Introduction To The Ultimatte

08m

You’ll get a straightforward introduction to what the Ultimatte does and why it is used in real-time workflows. This will give you context before you start dealing with the more technical controls.

Ultimatte Ports And Matte Concept

10m

You’ll learn how signals move through the Ultimatte and what the matte is actually doing. Once that clicks, the rest of the keying workflow becomes much easier to follow.

Connecting Your Video Signals

07m

You’ll learn how to connect your sources properly so the system receives the right foreground and background feeds. This helps you avoid a lot of basic setup mistakes that can waste hours.

Keying Basics And Controls

11m

You’ll learn the core controls that shape a usable key and what each one is there to fix. That means you can adjust the image with intention instead of randomly moving sliders.

Matching Foreground And Background

07m

You’ll learn how to make your subject and virtual background feel like they were photographed in the same space. This is where the composite starts looking believable rather than obviously fake.

Saving And Loading Presets

05m

You’ll learn how to save good working setups and bring them back quickly on later shoots. That makes your workflow faster, more repeatable, and far less dependent on rebuilding everything from scratch

Advanced Keying Tips And Tricks

10m

You’ll pick up more advanced fixes for difficult edges, spill, and other common problem areas. These are the kinds of practical adjustments that help rescue shots when the easy settings are no longer enough.

--Chapter 6-- Introduction To Camera Tracking

09m

You’ll learn what camera tracking is and why static composites and moving-camera composites are two very different challenges. This gives you the context for everything that follows in the tracking workflow.

Lens Profiling

11m

You’ll learn why your lens needs to be understood by the system if you want accurate virtual camera movement. You’ll also see when lens profiling matters most and what goes wrong when it is skipped.

Choosing A Tracking System

10m

You’ll compare tracking systems based on practical criteria like reliability, workflow, and cost. That will help you judge the options more realistically instead of choosing based on marketing alone.

Why We Chose Red Spy

09m

You’ll see why Red Spy made sense for this specific studio setup and what problems it solved. That gives you a real-world example of how to think through your own tracking choices.

Hardware Setup Rigging

09m

You’ll learn how to mount and rig the tracking hardware so your offsets stay stable and predictable. Small physical mistakes here can break the whole system, so this lesson helps you avoid them.

Software Setup Calibration

13m

You’ll learn how to calibrate the tracking system in software so it behaves properly once shooting starts. This is the part that turns a connected system into a usable one.

Lens Calibration Profiling

11m

You’ll go deeper into creating a lens profile that gives Unreal the information it needs to line up the shot accurately. This lesson helps you understand how precision here affects everything downstream.

Connecting Tracking To Unreal

08m

You’ll learn how to send tracking data into Unreal and confirm that the engine is responding correctly. Once this is set up properly, your virtual camera movement can finally match the real one.

What is Genlock for

07m

In this lesson, you'll learn what genlock is and why it's essential for keeping every device in your virtual production pipeline perfectly in sync. You'll discover how genlock locks video signals to a shared reference, preventing tearing, frame mismatches, and timing drift between cameras, LED walls, and the rendering engine. Understanding this concept is key to delivering clean, stable output on set.

Tips, Tricks, and Real-World Advice

12m

You’ll get a set of practical tracking lessons that come from real setup experience, not idealised diagrams. These tips are designed to help you work faster, troubleshoot earlier, and make the whole process less fragile.

--Chapter 7-- Recording Composited Footage

08m

You’ll learn how to record the final composited image in a way that is reliable enough for real productions. This gives you a clean master output you can trust when the shoot is finished.

Recording Beyond Composite

07m

You’ll learn why it can be smart to record more than just the final composite. Having backup layers gives you more options when something needs fixing in post.

Recording Unreal Background

11m

You’ll learn how and why to record the Unreal background separately from the final composite. This adds flexibility later if you need to rework the image or rebuild parts of the shot.

Live Camera Switching

09m

You’ll learn how live switching fits into a virtual production workflow and when it can save time in multi-camera shoots. This is especially useful if you want faster turnarounds and less editing later.

Audio Recording

04m

You’ll learn how to route and capture audio properly so it does not become the weak link in the production. Good picture will not save bad sound, so this lesson helps you protect the whole result.

About the Educator

Biro Florin

Filmmaker, Entrepreneur

1 Course

Biro Florin is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Masterwork Media, a virtual production company creating completely virtual series, podcasts, and commercials.

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