A virtual set is created in a 3D space and is displayed on a big LED screen that makes the background of the shot. The set on the screen accurately overlays the real set and, in fact, becomes its extension. Unlike with a static picture or a preset video, the perspective of a virtual set changes to fit the camera angle.

Rendering of such images is made in real time, which allows you to make adjustments right on the spot – to edit the shot composition or change the light both in the real and virtual aspects of the set.

If you want to shoot on the Moon, to have summer in the midst of winter, or to do a complicated scene in the light of sunrise having only 15 minutes for everything – in all predicaments of outdoor shooting a virtual set may help you out. In some cases you cannot do with conventional CGI technologies, as you have no time for postproduction, you need to go on air or you rely on the actors and the foreground objects to have the real light on.

Besides the background image, we can add virtual objects to the foreground. What makes it possible? In this case, we apply AR – the augmented reality technology allows adding the layer of virtual objects over the camera image. These objects are positioned in the same 3D space with the background and seem to be another real part of the common perspective.

This technology also allows us to avoid scattering separate objects at the foreground and fully screen the shot space with a virtual image. This approach helps us to "augment" the image beyond the working area of the camera and spares us the necessity to crop the shot to the background LED screen. Now we can shoot panoramas of any width within the virtual world and with living actors! This is called extended reality.