Progress in technology has long meant that graphics for film and television are limited by imagination more than hardware. For sports broadcasts, though, requirements for live data integration and real-time presentation create pressures that differ from otherwise similar work in post-production and visual effects. The sheer variety of projects and people, meanwhile, mean that there are almost as many routes to success as there are jobs to do.

Creative Workflows

Thom Stevens, Senior Director of Solutions Engineering at global services provider Deltatre, agrees there isn’t a single universal process that fits every design project. “It really depends on the customer, how engaged they are, and which stakeholders are involved,” he explains. “Great design teams might have a preferred approach, but you need to stay flexible to meet the customer’s needs. Different organizations approach design in very different ways. We can offer our expertise and recommend how much time and effort might deliver the best outcome, but ultimately, as a supplier, you need to work within the customer’s constraints.”

The challenge is further complicated by the fact that live, real-time broadcast graphics workflows haven’t historically been supported by collaboration tools built for creative design. “If you look at standard 2D digital design, you might use something like Figma, where the customer can see exactly what you’re producing and give real-time feedback,” Stevens points out. “In real-time 3D graphics, it’s rarely that simple. The production systems we use are incredibly powerful for quickly prototyping ideas, and you can get to something functional fast – but they don’t always have the tools you’d want for structured client feedback, especially if the customer isn’t sitting next to you.”

“They were originally built for fast-turnaround environments, like newsrooms,” Stevens continues. “They were not necessarily meant to compete with 3D modelling and animation tools like 3ds Max or Maya.  If you’re aiming for cinematic effects, then of course you’ll still need to work in those specialist packages, although we can argue that Unreal Engine adoption is allowing us to close the gap.”

At the same time, the tools that are familiar to creative teams in broadcast graphics – like After Effects – aren’t built to move seamlessly from design to real-time deployment in live production systems. Stevens notes: “Every customer has the right to supply assets in any format they choose – and many do. It’s common for a customer to give us an After Effects project for their graphics. But when it comes to live playout, you often end up having to rebuild those assets in the production environment anyway. After Effects might be useful to set the creative direction or visual standard, but if it’s for real-time playout, it’s usually better to design directly in the production toolset from the start – otherwise it just adds unnecessary extra work.”

Inevitably, the creative design will be the first thing to be addressed, but in the context of a large, complex project, Andrew Heimbold, President, at U.S. services provider Reality Check Solutions is clear that it must not overwhelm the schedule. “There has to be a plan in place,” Heimbold asserts, “and the plan can’t just be design. There’s a design and animation phase, a data phase and a control application phase. If you go too long on the design because everyone wants the design perfect…” He leaves that portentous sentence unfinished, then continues: “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had projects where people think the visual aspect, the design aspect, is the most important - and it’s an important aspect, of course, but I always joke that with all the projects we’ve done, design is ten percent of the work. The architecture is ninety.”

Building For Live

The sheer scale of the challenge, Heimbold confirms, is easy to mistake. “What people don’t realize is that for American sports - basketball, football, baseball - they can have 150 or 200 templates. There’s player comparisons, team comparisons, offensive, defensive, historical, speciality editorial, sponsored segments… you realize this can add up very quickly.”

That process often takes place in environments built more to accommodate live playout than creative design. Templates mocked-up in software such as After Effects might have to be approximated by hand in applications with different capabilities. RCS, Heimbold says, has worked to make the process a bit more interactive. “We have some live produciton system engines at our offices. We’ll load up the graphics and send it remotely so the client can monitor it. You have to be so careful in real time environments. They do the design and wonder why it doesn’t look exactly the same - when you’re doing it in [real time environments] you don’t have all the filters and effects.”

Stevens emphasizes the importance of balancing technical and creative priorities. “At Deltatre, we provide end-to-end services – from high-level branding to detailed creative concept design. Available lead time can vary from project to project. Everyone is pretty comfortable when we have 6 months, but when it’s a few days it can be very challenging.”

He then describes a process familiar to those commissioning broadcast graphics. “Our creative process ideally begins with a design workshop, which can range from a two-hour phone call to several days of in-depth collaboration, depending on the client’s needs. Design preferences often vary widely between broadcasters or even individual commissioners. Some seek a cohesive, globally adaptable brand identity, while others insist on incorporating distinctive regional motifs – such as national emblems, cultural iconography, or localized visual cues. The design market is highly competitive; when a potential customer issues an RFP for design services, suppliers can be expected to present a pitch that ideally aligns with these nuanced preferences before any workshops or collaborative processes begin.”

Stevens underscores a widely held view: moving from initial design to final presentation involves as much work on data integration and control systems as on creative design itself. “With virtual production and augmented reality, you’re not just designing models and rigging them for the real-time engine – which is already complex – but you also need to develop control systems, integrate live data feeds, and ensure everything functions seamlessly in a live environment.”

Designing Virtual Environments

Even once those tasks are accounted for, Stevens notes that building virtual environments often requires unexpected physical elements – including real-world furniture, sometimes painted green for chroma keying. “If you’re working in a studio space, designing the virtual set is just part of the picture. Physical infrastructure is essential: desks, chairs, and other set pieces need to be built. This typically falls outside the remit of graphics companies – including us – so collaboration with traditional set designers is crucial. On top of that, responsibilities for procuring and installing green screen or LED environments and appropriate lighting must be clearly assigned. It’s a complex, multi-layered process with many stakeholders involved.”

Despite those complexities, Stevens emphasizes, the right approach has led to some standout examples of things going well. “In the UK, the benchmarks in sport can often be seen in the broadcasts coming from Sky, the BBC, and Discovery amongst others – with immersive environments that can be used and reused for a significant number of hours on screen. You want to approach these projects with long lead times, and really the best teams are thinking about this as early as possible. If you want something that’s going to really stand out when you launch it, anyone who’s responsible should be thinking about it a year out because three months is really tight.”

With that in mind, the growth of technology has created a situation in which creativity is – if not unbounded – far less bounded than ever before. That’s true to the point where even deciding what’s necessary can involve some careful decision-making, especially given increasingly globalized distribution. “As a global Deltatre team, we benefit from collaborating with our colleagues worldwide in order to create the most engaging visualizations, and we are always aware of the specifics of local audiences’ expectations. Look and feel is subjective, and preferences definitely change around the world,” Stevens reflects.

Even so, the fundamentals remain.  “Do you have a brand? Is there a color scheme? Is there a font? Are there sponsors and brands we have to consider? What’s the sport, what’s the main focus. Do you want to focus particularly on your athletes if you’re going to the Olympics? The conversations are great, but until someone puts something down on paper, you don’t know if you’re on the right track.”

One result of that flexibility is an agony of choice, especially in a field so strongly influenced by competition among broadcasters and creatives. “You don’t want it to look dated,” Duncan Foot, CEO of UK service provider MOOV, says, “or the same as a lot of other things, or to fall into the trap of making [a virtual environment] look the size of an aircraft hangar because you can, so you do. You can make things look really corporate and shiny and otherworldly. To me, the best ones are the ones you look at and wonder if they’re real or virtual. For the Tokyo Olympics we were scuffing up some of the glass to make it feel more real.”

Getting those details right without neglecting the technical considerations, Foot says, will be easier with a better-integrated group of people. “We have all those design skills in house. We have Unreal designers who are specifically designing virtual studios, and we have traditional designers, motion designers. We’ve done various workflows. For Tokyo, [the client had] designed it and built it in Unreal, and we’d bring in some of the functionality. They needed a button that [changes the scene] from day to night, for instance.”

“Alternatively,” Foot continues, “we’ve done stuff where we’ve originated it and we‘ve said to a client ‘what’s your brand?’ Sometimes you come across people who haven’t worked in virtual who don’t know what to ask for, but mostly it’s very practical - ‘we want a green screen studio. What can we do?’ Certainly at the beginning of products it’s about educating the broadcast partner on what’s achievable and how you do stuff. We’ve sat with the production company and got some ideas. You go old school and get your crayons out and do boards and sketches and get some idea what they want - give them mood boards and visuals.”

Virtual production is a holdout in that computer performance can still limit creative intent, though Foot’s experience suggests that careful authoring can help limit the impact of that compromise.  “We’ve taken a lot of projects where someone else has designed the scene in Unreal that we’ve had to take and optimize some parts of it around lighting as we were hitting a ceiling of processing power. You have to optimize the project for resources you have.”