Jointly Optimizing Color Rendition and In-Camera Backgrounds in an RGB Virtual Production Stage

Abstract

While the LED panels used in today's virtual production systems can display vibrant imagery within a wide color gamut, they produce problematic color shifts when used as lighting due to their "peaky"spectral output from narrow-band red, green, and blue LEDs. In this work, we present an improved color calibration process for virtual production stages which ameliorates this color rendition problem while also maintaining accurate in-camera background colors. We do this by optimizing linear color correction transformations for 1) the LED panel pixels visible in the camera's field of view, 2) the pixels outside the camera's field of view illuminating the subjects, and - as a post-process - 3) the pixel values recorded by the studio camera. The result is that footage shot in an RGB LED panel virtual production stage can exhibit more accurate skin tones and costume colors while still reproducing the desired colors of the in-camera background.