Pixotope Engine

What is it?

Pixotope Engine is based on Epic's Unreal Engine, with features and changes optimizing it for live virtual productions.

Why are we modifying the Unreal Engine?

To combine high-quality graphics with the ease of use, stability and availability required in the TV and broadcast industry. The Unreal Engine offers great tools for building games, and based on this we have developed a specialized compositing and editor pipeline for virtual production. 

What is the difference between the Editor and the Engine?

These terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The tools that are used to create and edit levels are referred to as the Editor. However, an engine can be used to both create/edit levels and run them in Live mode.

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get means that you can use Pixotope Editor and see your video outputs, tracking and compositing being applied live, while you are designing your level.

Plugins

Pixotope Engine comes with a set of various additional features that can be enabled and disabled by choice. They are called Plugins.
Most standard and third-party plugins for the Unreal Engine can run in Pixotope as is, but some might require being recompiled specifically for Pixotope using our devkit.

Scene/Level/World/Map/Template

Scene, Level, World, Map and Template are terms that are used interchangeably to refer to a part of the Pixotope project that defines the three-dimensional virtual studio environment.

Object/Actor/Component

In Pixotope, we understand Objects as either Actors or Components present in the level. Actors are any entities located directly in the level, while Components are always attached to an Actor.
Objects have various properties and functions that can be executed on them. These are typically defined in a class of which the Object is an instance.

Blueprints

Pixotope Editor has a comprehensive visual programming system called Blueprints. It's a powerful tool that gives users almost complete control over the engine's features.

Internal Compositing Plane

Video input coming to Pixotope Engine can be composited into the rendered 3D graphics on a plane to represent spatial relations (for example, virtual objects being in front of or behind the talent).

Backplate

For AR workflows, video is shown behind all 3D graphics objects. We call this video the backplate as it does not exist in 3D space. Users can freely combine Internal compositing planes with the backplate.