Glassbox Dragonfly Subscription

DragonFly is a professional cross-platform virtual camera for Unreal Engine and Maya, that gives you the power to view your computer-generated environments, character performances and scenes, just as if you were doing a live action shoot, but virtually. Rendering shots in real-time through the camera’s viewfinder, your LCD monitor or iPad, DragonFly lets you visualize your virtual world, record, bookmark, create snapshots and even replicate real camera moves.

Putting creative control back into the hands of directors and cinematographers working with CG, DragonFly gives you the power and immediacy to make creative decisions on the fly, upfront, saving time and expense during post.

Overview

		BRINGING THE CREATIVE FREEDOM OF LIVE ACTION TO CG Harnessing leading game-engine and motion tracking technologies, DragonFly puts directors and DPs center stage in a CG production. Giving you all the tools you need to drive a camera, in real-time, just as you would your favourite real-world camera, DragonFly lets you test camera angles and moves for your CG scene and actors performance, and view the creative result live. Explore, execute, record, and even export the most complex camera movements from start to finish, with DragonFly you get the same freedom to experiment as a director on a live action film set.
POWERFUL TIME-SAVING VIRTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY MADE EASY DragonFly is designed to be a tool that works for you and not the other way around. Supporting multiple platforms and hardware agnostic, DragonFly gives you the freedom to work with a range of display and tracking solutions for whatever setup you’re running without the need for you to be an expert in game engines. ARKit support gives a light-weight wireless mobile virtual camera out of thebox, plus professional tracking system support, including Optitrack and Vive, ensure you can scale with DragonFly as you evolve your virtual production setup.
		PRODUCTION PROVEN VIRTUAL PRODUCTION WORKFLOW Built in collaboration with leading Hollywood studios to break down barriers in virtual production. DragonFly gives you an efficient end-to-end virtual cinematography solution from a highly optimized workflow for pre-viz, location scouting, rapid iteration on set, through to reviews and dailies, and if you’re working in a traditional pipeline, straight into post-production.

Features

		SUPPORTS UNREAL & MAYA DragonFly supports both Unreal Engine and leading 3D DCC Autodesk Maya, and offers a like-for-like workflow out-of-the box on both platforms. This means that with the DragonFly virtual camera in your toolkit you’ll never find yourself relearning controls when you move across your favourite production tools.
APPLE COMPANION APP DragonFly comes with its own Companion App for Apple devices, giving users fast and simple access to everyday camera hardware for virtual cinematography. This means users can now turn any space into a volume, without the need to invest in a motion capture stage, giving you the mobility and accessibility to test out scenes before committing, iterate faster, block animation, and virtual location scout anywhere.
		JOYSTICK BINDINGS DragonFly’s handy Joystick Bindings allow users to bind settings for their most commonly used camera features to a joystick, game vice controller or the iPad controls. When using the Bindings users can change reference axis (global or local), giving them the ability to cover large distances or allow for fine tuning. In addition, DragonFly comes with an API Function for Joystick Bindings, giving advanced users the ability to bind custom DragonFly API functions or analog sticks for extensive control over the camera directly through the joystick.
CAMERA TRACKING DragonFly supports Vive Tracker, ARKit and OptiTrack natively for Camera Tracking. With ARKit both professional and aspiring virtual cinematographers can get to work anywhere without the need for any additional technology or the use of a motion capture stage. For those users already working with the Vive Tracker, MoSys, Vicon or other specialist motion capture systems, DragonFly seamlessly integrates into your existing workflow thanks to its native integrations and Custom Tracking Input API. DragonFly also supports camera track FBX export, meaning users can export recorded sequences as FBX files for use in 3D applications.
		PLATFORMING Platforming allows the virtual cinematographer to see from the point of view of a camera from any object in the scene, allowing the user to quickly and easily move around the scene and record from any view point. For example when creating a point-of-view shot for an animated object, Platforming to the object and including its rotation lets the virtual camera move exactly like the object itself. This is particularly helpful to hone in on an area of the scene for more specific takes or can be used to navigate a large virtual scene when virtual location scouting.
SNAPSHOTS DragonFly’s Snapshot feature allows users to store the position and location of the virtual camera, as well as a specific time on the master sequence so that the user can quickly re-do camera takes without changing settings, or redo takes starting from the same point on the master sequence. This allows users to very quickly and easily generate multiple takes of the same shot, and compare preferred versions.
		MOVEMENT SCALING DragonFly’s tracking system allows the user to specify a per-axis scaling value to convert real world motion into the virtual world. This enables the user to scale up or down movement to fit either a stage or the dimensions of a virtual scene. This motion can also be combined with the joystick controls to support fine or large movements.
REVIEW & RECORDING DragonFly’s Review and Recording systems let users playback pre-recorded sequences directly on the virtual camera or via the mobile companion app, and with advanced recording controls users can efficiently capture difficult sequences. Using the "recording speed" setting, you can slow down your scene animation to capture quick camera motions whilst keeping the sequence FPS unchanged, facilitating the seamless transition between recording and reviewing a shot.
		SLOW MOTION PLAYBACK With Slow Motion Playback users can set a speed factor that enables smooth motion as well as tracking of fast movements, with this feature users have the flexibility to playback either at normal speed or in slow-mo, whereby time appears to be slowed down.
RECORDED CLIP SMOOTHING Recorded Clip Smoothing gives users detailed level controls to smooth camera position, sensor settings and rotation, or smooth the recorded camera motion. This is particularly useful when working with a shot that was recorded in slow motion and as a result has registered jitter in the camera track.

Dragonfly for unreal and Maya in the news

Requirements

HOST SUPPORT

• Unreal Engine 4.25/4.24 or Maya 2020/2019
• Windows 10, 64-bit
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or above
• Intel i5 7th Generation CPU or above
• 8 GB RAM
• DragonFly Companion App, download via the iOS App Store
• Or Vive/Optitrack setup

One license works in all hosts.

Recommended

• GeForce GTX 1070 or above
• Intel i7 7th Generation CPU or above
• 16 GB RAM or above