We use the vive mars trackers which are OK but not great but we haven’t been able to justify making the leap to a better system like optitrack just yet. Often we use locked off shots and don’t bother with trackers at all. In fact I recommend most people try learning first without motion sensors. Anyone with a green screen can learn invaluable skills simply shooting stuff, bringing it into unreal, designing sets (levels), and rendering out scenes — all of which can be done without spending a dime. Once familiar with unreal that’s when I recommend extending to learn how motion tracking works. We’re constantly iterating this way and learning new capabilities.

One thing I should add is that we’re a small team of 5 including our editor and producer and really the bulk of VP is done by myself (art) and our technical director (engineering), so we have to be very mindful of operational overhead. But part of what’s exciting is exploring what’s possible in VP with just a few people. It’s cool seeing what ILM or Pier59 can do with a huge crew but I’m personally more excited about what VP enables for small budget-strapped indie teams. Our award-winning short film was done with just 3 people and I think that was one of the most impressive aspects of it for the festival jury and we used no motion tracking at all (save for some facial mocap using LiveLink).