When Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds pulls on the red mask in Deadpool & Wolverine, the performance does not stop at the edge of the costume. Facial movement, lighting, digital doubles and effects work all help preserve something recognisably Reynolds even when much of the finished image has been altered digitally.
Look closely at how an effects-heavy film is made now and parts of the workflow start to resemble game development. Virtual cameras, 3D environments and assets built for cinema-quality close-ups increasingly sit alongside real-time rendering tools that began in games.
Vancouver VFX already works like a game pipeline
For Deadpool & Wolverine, Framestore delivered 420 VFX shots overall, with its Vancouver team handling the film’s 200-shot Deadpool Corps sequence. The work involved digital environments, digi-doubles, simulations and extensive compositing.
A finished shot may look fixed, but very little behind it is. A character model can move between departments, an environment can be relit and a camera angle can change without the entire scene being rebuilt. Textures, digital faces, simulated cloth and lighting are created as assets rather than one-off pictures. Inside a game engine, those same kinds of assets face a different problem: the camera belongs to the player. Someone can turn around, move closer or head somewhere the designer did not expect, so models and lighting have to keep working from every relevant angle.
Film production is borrowing from that flexibility. A recent look at how Canadian filmmakers are pushing visual boundaries in 2026 describes real-time rendering engines and LED-volume production being used to build environments before and during filming. Backgrounds, lighting and camera positions can change without rebuilding an entire physical set.
Game engines have changed what actors see on set
Green screen asks actors to imagine quite a lot. An LED stage can put part of the finished world in front of them.
A digital sunset can throw warm light across a face. Reflections from a virtual city can appear on a car during filming. If a director wants the horizon shifted or the light changed, that adjustment can happen while the production is still on set. For Reynolds and other performers working in effects-heavy productions, there may be more to react to than a blank wall and tracking markers. The environment can contribute real reflections and lighting before later VFX work begins.
Performance capture makes the film-game connection even more obvious. Coverage of the upcoming God of Wartelevision adaptation filming in Vancouver notes that Ryan Hurst voiced Thor and performed the character’s motion capture in God of War Ragnarök. His work already crosses the divide: acting for a game character in a property that is now being rebuilt for television.
Unreal Engine can render a landscape behind an actor just as easily as it can render one around a player. The artistic priorities change, but lighting, surfaces, digital characters and believable environments remain familiar territory.
Movie-quality presentation has spread across interactive entertainment
Live-dealer casino interfaces show how far this kind of screen design has travelled. There may be a real person and camera feed at the centre, but balances, betting controls, timers and promotional information all have to fit around the video without obscuring the action.
Some of that information is visual, while some explains how an offer actually works. Covers, a betting and casino information publisher, breaks down Rainbet’s promotional terms and conditions, including the minimum deposit, wagering requirement, maximum-bet limit and excluded games attached to the offer. Its current listing records a $30 minimum deposit and 40x wagering requirement. Those details share the interface with live video and animation, but they serve a different purpose from the graphics surrounding them.
Interactive graphics also have to cope with an audience that can change what happens next. Someone can open a menu, switch a view or trigger an animation at a moment the designer did not expect. A finished film shot never has to accommodate that kind of interruption; an interactive image does.
From one performance to several formats
Volumetric capture gives performers another route between film and interactive work. An actor can be recorded in three dimensions, viewed from different positions and placed into environments that were never physically present during the shoot. One capture might later appear in a film sequence, an immersive installation or another interactive project.
The same performance data and virtual environments can move between formats without being rebuilt from scratch. In a production centre where film, VFX, animation and game work draw on similar technical skills, that flexibility is practical rather than theoretical. Creative BC’s current motion-picture data estimates that more than 370 film and television projects were made in B.C. in 2024, contributing about C$3.1 billion in provincial GDP and 41,999 jobs.
For someone watching Reynolds on a cinema screen, none of those hand-offs need to be obvious. The mask, the lighting and the world around him simply have to look convincing. Behind that image, the distinction between a movie tool and a game tool is becoming much less tidy.