Now a days filmmaking comes more easy with virtual production. It helps more complex set design, scenes or scenes that simply cannot be filmed for real. Virtual production is where the physical and digital worlds meet together. In general, though, virtual production can really refer to any techniques that allow filmmakers to plan, imagine, or complete some kind of filmic element, typically with the aid of digital tools. It lets directors work on a mocap stage, but view a virtual environment and characters. Virtual production has been around for years (an early version was used in The Fellowship of the Ring), but Avatar was the pivotal moment. James Cameron wanted to direct live actors on the mocap stage, but view their performances in the Pandora environment.
Virtual production tools in live action tend to relate mostly around the capturing of action, often with simul-cams or virtual cameras. These are effectively screens acting as virtual cameras that can be tracked just like motion captured actors are tracked, so that someone looking at the screen – a director – can see an almost-finished composed image of what the final shot may look like. The whole idea is to simply replicate what you might do with a live action action camera, but that you can’t do with such a camera because you might be crafting a synthetic world or synthetic characters that cannot be filmed for real. (Information grabbed from Unreal Engine, Weta Digital, Cartoon Brew)
