ASAP - A Scalable 2D/3D Architecture for Cross Media Virtual Production

A film studio, a games developer, and a visual effects company are building a single digital pipeline that lets the same 3D assets—a virtual city, a CGI character—move seamlessly between a movie set, a video game engine, and a TV edit suite without being rebuilt from scratch. Today, film, TV, and games teams create separate versions of the same digital content, wasting time and money. A prop modelled for a film’s previsualisation stage cannot be used directly in the final render or in a game without manual rework. This project aims to collapse those separate production stages into one continuous workflow, using scalable rendering that adjusts quality on the fly—real-time for live previews, near-line for final output. If successful, the tools and software developed here could let a director see a finished-quality composite on set, a game developer pull in a film-grade asset instantly, and a VFX artist light a scene interactively. The consortium includes the UK’s largest visual effects company, three specialist media-tech firms, and a leading independent games studio, giving the work a direct route into commercial production pipelines.