Virtual Production and Camera Tracking: Which one to choose?

Hello,

I am designin a Virtual Production Studio, based on Unreal Engine, mostly with Blackmagic products.

The experiments so far are pretty impressive and I am trying now to choose the right tracker for studio cameras, for mixed reality and compositing in Unreal.

I see there is plenty of options out there, from HalideFX to Optitrack to Mo-Sys. I've tested the HTC trackers and seems to work very well, stable and precise, but I struggle to find a solution for track zoom and focus out of the lenses.

So, which one to choose? They are all pretty expensive so I just want to make the right choice. Do you have any experience on this topic?

Unless your lenses have data output that you can record FIZ info with, you will have to capture that with manual encoders of some kind. Check out Stype and Ncam, I have attended good demos from both vendors.

I'll attend a presentation from Lightcraft, with their HalideFX.

I saw that Red Spy seems to track the position in space using IR, it looks like it doesn't track zoom/focus, and so is Ncam. Did they show this features in their presentations? Thank you.

Also check out this topic by Levitezer
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=83800&p=464337&hilit=Levitezer#p464337

I'll attend a presentation from Lightcraft, with their HalideFX.

I saw that Red Spy seems to track the position in space using IR, it looks like it doesn't track zoom/focus, and so is Ncam. Did they show this features in their presentations? Thank you.

Yes, they both did.

Also check out this topic by Levitezer
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=83800&p=464337&hilit=Levitezer#p464337

I think this is a solution for Blackmagic cameras? I use Sony FS7, don't know if it is compatible

ome "custom solutions" are likely less expensive than off the self solutions on this area. Meanwhile, I'm just not sure if it works with Black Magic Cinema Cameras.

All the best!