When Chaos Labs first showed off Chaos Arena and Chaos Vantage together, the pitch sounded almost heretical: a real-time virtual production suite that skips game engines entirely. To some, that sounded impossible. To others, overdue. We spoke with Chris Nichols, Director of Chaos Labs, about what it means to go “engine-free,” why USD and MaterialX matter when the lights go up, and how Gaussian splats actually behave outside a SIGGRAPH paper. *1
DP: Chris,before we jump into the tech: Chaos Arena and Chaos Vantage together are pitched as a virtual production suite without the usual game engine baggage. How would you describe the idea behind this approach in your own words? Chris Nichols: One of the biggest issues with virtual production is rendering. There are options that have existed for a while, including working with game engines, but they require you to move to an entirely different platform, use an entirely different ecosystem, and switch to an entirely different pipeline....
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