Top 10 Companies Dominating the Global Virtual Production Market

The global virtual production market size reached approximately USD 3.04 billion in 2023. The market is assessed to grow at a CAGR of 13.5% between 2024 and 2032 to attain a value of around USD 9.52 billion by 2032. As per the analysis by Expert Market Research, the market is expected to be driven by the increasing popularity of VFX heavy films.

Virtual production blends CGI with live-action footage making use of real-time rendering engines, large motion capture technology, LED video walls, and previsualization software in order to provide filmmakers with instant visual feedback and carry out real-time adjustments while filming.

The improved efficiency offered by virtual production is increasing its adoption. The technology discards the requirement for travel, hospitality, and catering for casts and crews, while the set building and shooting of films and ads takes place parallelly. Additionally, the production compositing is lowered, leading to significant cost savings. With entertainment becoming significantly social and interactive, the virtual production technologies are gaining popularity as the fundamental building blocks and enablers of the emerging metaverse, aiding the virtual production market growth.

The United States and United Kingdom have 84 and 40 VP stages, respectively. This reflects the increasing investment in VPs by content creators and studios. Some of the other major VP stages globally are Dark Bay, Netflix’s first purpose-built VP stage in Germany.

According to the virtual production market analysis, the need for virtual and collaborative tools to lower production costs, expedite projects, and minimize the limitations of physical production sets is driving the market. Additionally, the rising technological advancements such as motion capture technology, cloud-based editing, virtual scouting, and in-camera VFX are further supporting market growth. Moreover, artificial intelligence is creating significant improvements in the quality of its computer-generated graphics, while also facilitating pre-production support thereby accelerating video production work.

In March 2024, Hong Kong Design Studio opened a new virtual production studio at Shaw Studios to support the professional education in the sector and improve filming facilities in the city of Greater Bay Area.

In September 2023, Samsung launched the digital signage series The Wall for Virtual Production (model name: IVC), in Europe. The new virtual production technology can improve projects by adding lifelike levels of detail, volume, texture, and shades to virtual content creation environments.

Top 10 Virtual Production Companies in the World:

Adobe Inc.

Adobe Inc is a renowned technology company offering digital media, and digital experience, and is also engaged in publishing and advertising. The company provides virtual production technologies that enable more creative flexibility and more access to multiple locations. Adobe Experience Cloud is enabling personalized experiences to customers with solutions such as data insights and audiences, customer journeys, content and commerce, and marketing planning and workflow.

NVIDIA Corporation

NVIDIA is a full-stack computing company offering GPU-accelerated computing, artificial intelligence, automotive technology, gaming, supercomputing, robotics, deep learning, virtual reality, self-driving cars, virtualization, parallel computing, professional graphics. The company provides NVIDIA Omniverse™ Enterprise virtual production technology enabling directorial edits in real time. Some of the industries the company caters to include energy, automotive, architecture, engineering, construction and operations, financial services, consumer internet, higher education, cybersecurity, healthcare and life sciences, and game development.

Sony Group Corporation

Sony Group Corporation, is an integrated company including Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc., Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Mobile Communications Inc. The company conducts its business in areas including imaging entertainment, lens technology and systems, mobile communications, home and personal entertainment, professional imaging technology, media solutions, software services, virtual production, sports entertainment, etc.

Autodesk Inc.

Autodesk is renowned for its software such as AutoCAD, Revit, Maya, 3ds Max, Fusion 360, and SketchBook, among others. With over 1000 employees worldwide, the company is engaged in providing technologies spanning sectors such as construction, manufacturing, architecture, engineering, product design, and media and entertainment. Some of the software provided by the company for virtual production are Maya, Flow Production Tracking, and MotionBuilder.

Technicolor S.A.

Technicolor is a creative technology company known for its renowned studios, MPC, The Mill, Mikros Animation and Technicolor Games. The company specialises in VFX, recruitment, visual effects, film, advertising, animation, commercials, production, AR, design, games, concept art, episodic, AI, CGI, visualization, software, digital, and 3D. The company partners with Amazon Studios, Marvel Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal, MGM, Apple TV, Netflix, and Walt Disney among others.

HTC Corporation

HTC is an innovation company specialising in mobile, VR, telecommunication, mobile device, open handset alliance, OHA, android, smartphone, AOSP, brand, smartphone, software, hardware, android mobile, android phone, windows phone, metal, premium, virtual reality (VR), AI, Blockchain, and 5G. HTC has a workforce of 2,073 as of March 2024. The company provides virtual production tools through its subsidiary Vive.

Vicon Motion Systems Limited

Vicon Motion Systems provides tailored motion capture systems for applications including location-based virtual reality, life sciences, media and entertainment, and engineering. The other specialities of the company are Robot Tracking, Gait Analysis, Sports Biomechanics, Ergonomics, Biomechanics, Immersive Environments, Performance Capture, Animation, Broadcast Tracking, and VFX. The company’s virtual production partners include Aximetry, ARRI, Reallusion and bluefish.

Side Effects Software Inc. (SideFX)

Side Effects Software Inc. creates visual effects and 3D animation for usage in motion pictures, television shows, and video games. Houdini software, which covers modeling, rigging, compositing, animation, particle effects, dynamics, and integrated rendering, is the company's most well-known product. The Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows operating systems can all use Houdini. A lot of people utilize the Houdini Engine to build virtual production sets.

Epic Games, Inc.

Epic Games is a well-known global producer of 3D engine technology and interactive entertainment. The company is proud to run Fortnite, one of the most popular games worldwide. Over 6 billion friend connections and over 800 million accounts are held by the firm across Fortnite, Fall Guys, Rocket League, and the Epic Games Store. The business uses Unreal Engine for its virtual production needs.

Mo-Sys Engineering Ltd.

Mo-Sys Engineering Ltd. is a specialist in virtual production, camera tracking, broadcast robotics, and remote production services, in addition to creating, manufacturing, and implementing complete turnkey and custom solutions. Several films and HETV series, including Gravity, Life of Pi, Westworld, Birdman, and Tron Legacy, feature the robotics and remote heads manufactured by this media production business. Beyond the box technology was also supplied by the company for television shows including Strictly Come Dancing and Red Bull Air Race.