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ICVFX virtual production may have been popularized by science fiction shows like The Mandalorian and Fallout, but production teams and studios all around the world are adopting the technology for the versatility and convenience it brings. Key to ICVFX virtual production is the LED wall/volume.
Building your LED wall right will help prevent and minimize hiccups, and therefore, expensive repairs, down the line. After having designed and integrated custom LED volumes for Fortune 500 companies around the world, we like to think we know a thing or two about building LED walls. Here’s how the CoPilotXR team builds and integrates LED walls to ensure our clients are set up for success.
The Groundwork
Before getting started with your build, you need to figure out your wall size & specifications, your mounting, and your electrical setup. LED volumes are large, often permanent structures, so making sure you properly plan for building them is key.
1. Choose the size of your LED wall/volume
The most important factor to consider when choosing your volume size is the types of projects you’d like to shoot. For example, if you’ll only be shooting interviews, you won’t need an 80 ft diameter volume. On the other hand, if you’ll be filming multiple cars, you’ll probably need a wall larger than 20 ft in diameter. Otherwise, you run the risk of running out of wall space and limiting your camera movements.
If you anticipate shooting multiple different kinds of projects, we find that semicircle volumes with a diameter between 30 feet to 50 feet provide the most versatility.
The next factor to consider when choosing your volume size is the size of your space. Obviously, you can’t put a huge LED volume in a small room, but you’ll also need to factor in the space that your camera, lights, processors, and other equipment will need.
The size of your shooting space will also impact the LED tile specifications you choose, such as pixel pitch. A smaller space means your camera will have to be closer to your volume, so you may opt for LED tiles with a smaller pixel pitch to prevent moire.
Read more about how to choose the right LED volume size for your organization here.
2. Choose your mounting
Now that you know how large your volume will be, you can choose how you’ll mount it.
Ground support is the standard option, but may require more space. Generally, you should reserve about three to four feet behind your volume to make sure there is space for the support rigging, and ample room to safely service your tiles.
Another common option is ceiling mounting. As with any hanging structure, you’ll have to consider any load bearing beams in your space. It also requires certified rigging points, so if your space isn’t equipped for that and it isn’t within your budget, you may need to look at other rigging options.
Generally, the most cost-efficient option is ground support, but certain cases may call for other mounting options. For example, many organizations with the proper rigging points opt for ceiling mounting because it can actually help minimize the seam (the gap between the volume and the floor).
Additionally, LED walls over 16ft in height will usually require ceiling or additional wall support to ensure stability. However, vendors like ROE have recently released LED products that are capable of standing freely at heights over 16ft with just ground support.
3. Figure out your electrical setup
It comes as no surprise that your space needs to have enough power to run an LED wall. The amount of power you’ll need will depend entirely on the size of your wall, the amount of LED tiles that make up the wall, and the LED tiles you choose to use in general (as some generate a higher output than others.)
With every LED tile, there will be a maximum power output AND an average power output. Maximum assumes you’re powering the volume at 100% brightness (or nits in LED terminology), and average assumes the general brightness to be around 50%. A common misconception is “the brighter the wall, the better the LED looks” – while this may be true for advertising or display LEDs, in XR virtual production LED walls are often operated at a brightness level of 10-20%.
All that being said, when you’re factoring the amount of power you need for your LED wall, it’s better to be safe than sorry – we like to assume 5-6 LED tiles per designated 20 amp breaker. This gives you plenty of extra power to stop you from accidentally tripping a breaker. Your LED integrator will give you the option to order power cables that go directly from the LED wall to a standard electrical outlet, or go with another option like a distribution box.
A distribution box (also known as “distro box”) is a portable device that safely distributes electricity from a power source to other devices, which essentially acts as its own electrical box by breaking down the power of your LED wall into something digestible. This is a great option if your LED wall consists of 100-150+ LED tiles.
If you don’t already have enough power, you may need to install multiple outlets or rework your electrical panel all together. Since you're likely building a permanent structure, you want to make sure the outlets or power you install are behind the LED wall and are spaced out accordingly and adhere to your local building guidelines and codes. If you have more questions about what power requirements your specific LED tile might have, you can also find power requirement calculators online.
The Build
For the sake of simplicity, let’s look at how a 20 ft volume would be built with ground support.
1. Build and level your mount supports
You need something to stack tiles on. When building your mount support, it’s imperative that you have a straight, solid, and level structure. If you’re off by even a millimetre, it’ll build up as you stack LED tiles on top, leading to damage, artifacting, protrusions, etc. The resulting wall will also be more difficult to do maintenance on because pulling a tile out might damage the delicate diodes.
We recommend opting for base bars with adjustable feet so you can ensure the entire structure is level. You can use a laser level, but a large hand-held carpentry level will also work.
2. Stack your tiles
When stacking your tiles, place one at a time from right to left (from the back of the wall). As you place each tile, make sure to lock it into your base bar and the surrounding tiles before moving on to the next one. Always stack one row at a time, from right to left.
Make sure each seam lines up perfectly. Every misaligned millimeter compounds as you stack the tiles, leading to large seams (that are visible on camera) and possible damage to the diodes.
3. Build your stacking support system
As you stack your tiles, you should also build your rear base trusses. Every second column should have a rear base truss, and every second or third row should have a rear connector to connect the tiles to the stacking bar.
4. Add counterweights
Counterweights are essential for making sure your volume doesn’t lean or worse, fall over (yikes). These counterweights will typically take the form of sandbags or equivalent, and you can expect them to be essentially a permanent fixture if you have ground support. Ceiling and wall mounts don’t require counterweights.
The Setup
The final step is to set up your power and data cabling. Your integrator (that’s us!) will give you a power and data cabling map that shows how your cables should connect to each tile.
Data Cabling
All data cables are daisy-chained with one output per set amount of LEDs. The number of LEDs you have on a single daisy chain will determine your bit rate, or fidelity. The less tiles connected on a single daisy chain, the higher your fidelity. However, since that means you’ll have more daisy chains overall, you’ll need to make sure your processor(s) can support that number.
Power Cabling
Similarly, the overall number of power cable daisy chains will be dependent on your power supply.
Ideally, every single column of tiles would have its own 20 Amp breaker on your electrical panel. More realistically, if you haven’t thought about this and you're plugging multiple LED columns into an existing power outlet, you may have to connect less tiles on a single daisy chain, especially if you have tiles with very high nits. Otherwise, you run the risk of blowing a fuse and damaging your tiles and ancillary equipment such as your LED processor.
Depending on the size of your wall, you still may need a distribution box. However, distribution boxes can get pretty expensive, so if you have a smaller LED wall, it may be more cost-effective to just install custom outlets into your existing breaker.
When we work on LED volume integrations, we typically do the power cabling first, since the data cabling requires more cables. This can help make sure your cables stay organized.
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Once your power and data cabling is done, all that’s left to do is plug your wall into your LED processor and do your calibration. Then, it’s time to film!
Building an LED wall is a delicate balancing act of different factors that can quickly become overwhelming. The CoPilotXR team can help you plan and integrate a custom LED volume for your organization’s needs. Shoot us a message here: consulting@copilotco.io
Check out how we built our LED wall in the video below.
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