Synapse SetExtend™
Frame wider than the LED volume can hold, then let SetExtend fill in the rest, floor included.
Frame wider than the LED volume can hold, then let SetExtend fill in the rest, floor included.
Beyond The Volume.
SetExtend lets filmmakers greatly expand the scope of their vision: frame wider, more cinematic vistas and replace limited art-dressed floors and scenes beyond the constraints of the physical LED volume. You don't need a 100-foot LED volume to frame that grand cinematic shot. Go wide, then let SetExtend fill in the rest.
No Green Screen.
SetExtend builds on your in-camera VP footage, not a keyed green-screen void. Your talent keeps the cinematographer's crafted lighting and the volume's interactive reflections as shot, and you gain your coveted wider frame, with no green spill and no lost reflections or interactive light. SetExtend expands your environments without protracted VFX processes: no keying, 3D reconstruction, rotoscoping or match-moving.
Groundwork
Like its car process cousin Roadwork, Groundwork uses our proprietary AI tools and workflow to replace the stage floor with a matching, photoreal surface that blends seamlessly with the LED walls and on-set art dressing, again preserving every in-camera performance, light and camera move.
See For Yourself.
The same shot, the same volume. One version stops where the wall ends. The other opens wide past the stage, with the in-camera lighting carried all the way out.
Wide set extension beyond the LED volume, including Groundwork floor replacement.
Set extension,Groundwork,Wide frames
Wide set extension & Groundwork.
Wider than the wall
No green screen required
The practical-to-digital handoff, perfected
Stage edge to full frame
Talk to us about SetExtend
Show us where the wall runs out and we will take the frame past it.
Extend your set with us
Virtual production allows for the creation of incredible worlds to film within, but the size of the LED volume shouldn't limit the scope of those vistas. Whatever its size, the physical wall typically sets a hard limit on how wide you can frame a shot. With Synapse SetExtend, shots on the volume can be framed significantly wider than the physical LED stage can contain, expanding the scene to meet the scope of your vision, built on the real in-camera footage and the 3D assets driving the wall's content, with no green-screen or compositing workflow needed.
Why the LED wall limits how wide you can frame
Every LED volume has a fixed width, a finite height and a point where the illusion ends. That physical limit shapes the angles and coverage you can achieve on set. Wide master shots get compromised tighter. Cranes get shortened. Shots get designed around the hardware dimensions rather than the story. The alternative has traditionally been shooting on green screen, which trades the wall's biggest advantage, the immersive 3D environment with dynamic, interactive light and reflections, for a wider frame.
How SetExtend widens the in-camera shot
SetExtend is built from your in-camera virtual production footage. The center of frame stays exactly as shot: the talent, the practical set, the true lighting and reflections from the LED. That creative authorship is retained. What gets added is the part of the world beyond where the wall stopped, matched to the plate in perspective, grade and grain, and driven by the aesthetic of your on-set photography.
You frame for the story, not for the hardware.
Because foreground sets and talent are framed, lit and captured in camera against the volume's virtual environment rather than a green-screen key, there is no green spill corrupting skin tones, no keying artifacts fighting hair and smoke, no missing reflections or scene-driven ambient light, and none of the uncanny flatness that gives green-screen composites away.
And although SetExtend is a post-production VFX process, it is significantly faster because most of the frame's composite was already captured in camera. It expands on what you have already created, so there is no protracted keying, rotoscoping, 3D set reconstruction or match-moving. The extension inherits the look instead of being graded to imitate it.
Groundwork: AI floor replacement for the stage
It's not only about wide shots. Like its car process cousin Roadwork, Groundwork uses our proprietary AI tools and workflows to replace the stage floor with a matching, photoreal surface that blends seamlessly with the LED walls' content and the on-set art dressing. A stage floor becomes a bank's marble tile or a street that runs past the edge of the volume.
What SetExtend is good for
- Wide masters: establishing sizes the volume cannot physically hold
- Crane and jib moves: travel that would otherwise overshoot the volume's dimensions
- Ceiling and floor extension: where the volume stops before the frame does, including Groundwork
- Set completion: extending a practical build past what was constructed
- Green-screen replacement: wider frames without slow, costly VFX or the artificial keyed look
Planning set extension in previs
Set extension is cheapest when it is planned rather than discovered. If techvis knows a move will run past the wall, the shot can be captured with extension in mind: the right overlap, the right camera data, the right coverage of the practical set edge. You don't need a 100-foot LED volume to frame that grand cinematic shot. Go wide, then let SetExtend fill in the rest.