The virtual production (VP) market is projected to grow from $3.37 billion in 2024 to $10.07 billion by 2032. That means we can expect more VFX studios to adopt new virtual production toolsets in 2025, which is a strong indication of what I call VP 2.0.
Already, many creatives are realizing that while it's not a magic fix, VP - or specifically, ICVFX (in-camera visual effects) - can genuinely optimize a film's budget or timeline. With VP 2.0, virtual production will no longer just be used for driving plates. Instead, we'll see more large set pieces with expansive backgrounds shot entirely in-camera, rather than filled in with traditional VFX. A good example is Amazon’s new series Every Minute Counts about the 1985 earthquake in Mexico and the inspiring rescue effort that followed. The rubble was built practically, however, the background of the city in ruins was projected onto an LED volume.
VFX departments will also start to contribute to the filmmaking process much earlier, building a seamless bridge between principal photography and post production. More and more VFX companies will have realtime teams, who specialize in photoreal world-building in Unreal Engine or even traditional, pre-rendered plates.
As well as the increased use of in-camera VFX and realtime teams, I believe the convergence of VP and AI is something that will grow in 2025. We’ll see AI toolsets that continue to improve using advances such as 3D Gaussian Splats. These will help with everything from dubbing to de-aging, where we will see continued experimentation and perhaps some adoption.
The use of stable diffusion-based AI image generation is also promising. Tools like Cuebric, which can generate AI backdrops for ICVFX use, have been upgraded to incorporate 2.5D. This means anyone can create a 2D image, then use inpainting to separate it into multiple layers of depth. Each layer can be represented by its own individual geometry and texture, and that is then brought into an LED volume using Disguise. This creates a very quick path to previs and techvis, allowing VFX teams to easily and cost-effectively generate a photoreal 3D world with realistic parallax.
Finally, the convergence of traditional DCC tools and VP is another space to look out for in 2025. For example, VFX render engine Chaos V-Ray is now about to be upgraded for virtual production with a realtime version. This holds significant promise for VFX departments as the DCC toolsets would be the same for both VP and VFX, and so would the quality of the render.
Addy Ghani is VP of Virtual Production at Disguise (www.disguise.one). Disguise offers an integrated system of software, hardware and services for creating realtime virtual production environments.