Netflix’s Stranger Things VR Boosts Realism with Graphine Software

CBS VFX’s Emmy Nominated VR experience for Netflix’s “Stranger Things” was recently updated and made available on the Sony Play Station. (PSVR)

It debuted November 1st at Paris Games Week. The team at CBS VFX is known for award winning Visual Effects in television and movies and Jim Berndt, Head of VR, at CBS VFX stated: We wanted to produce the project the same way we solve visual effects for television. The main difference is our television pipeline uses Maya and V-Ray yet in with VR you are limited by the power of a game engine. We chose Unreal to render the Stranger Things PSVR experience. Our crew originally captured three sets from the show, one of them being Joyce Byer’s house. We used laser scans for initial meshing and then optimized the geometry. Texturing the meshes is where you see the true power of Granite SDK. http://www.graphinesoftware.com/granite-sdk Our Mari pipeline for texturing that required hundreds of hi resolution photographs. Our typical pipeline is to use UDIM textures to ensure high resolution results on our meshes. With Granite, texture limitations were no longer a concern. We use a large number of 8K textures without frame rate drops or loss of quality. Not to have to re texture and be able to use the existing pipeline saved us a lot of time and effort.

VR is a always a challenge with quality as you always feel you are trying to stuff ten pounds into a five-pound bag. Our larger room scale experience, uses Optical tracking, which allows the user to explore an entire environment. The power of Granite enables users to get close to all objects giving them the ability to read small print, and super fine details. This type of experience couldn’t be achieved without their texture streaming and virtual texturing technology. http://graphinesoftware.com/our-technology/texture-streaming Netflix’s Stranger Things VR boosted realism with Graphine software. Check out the cast of Stranger Things Experience VR for the first time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqW4l9Y5cXY When we approach all our VR projects, we count on added value to optimize the customer experience and Granite is now a staple in our process. #StrangerThings #VirtualReality Read why we love Granite Software. http://www.graphinesoftware.com/