Real-time graphics changed what a small studio can do for broadcast

For most of the history of broadcast graphics, the rule was simple: the bigger the show, the bigger the graphics department. Every element was rendered in advance, every change meant a re-render, and live meant a small set of templates that someone had built weeks earlier. A studio our size did not get near the big live shows, because we could not staff them.

That rule is gone, and a games engine is the reason.

Four streams, one identity, one month

When Streams+ and M-SParc asked us for the brand and every on-screen graphic for the Esteddfod, the first esports tournament run entirely in Welsh, the brief included a live audience show and four independent streams on a timeline that would have been impossible the old way. Unreal Engine 5.4 came out the same month. We built the graphics in it, so everything on screen ran in real time and reacted live. Scores, names, environments, transitions: none of it was rendered in advance, because none of it had to be.

What real time actually changes

The obvious win is speed. The bigger one is that the graphics stop being a fixed asset and become a system that responds. A presenter can change the running order and the graphics follow. A sponsor can be added on the day. A camera move can be mirrored in a virtual environment as it happens. The work moves from making pictures to designing the rules the pictures follow, and that is work a small team can do well.

The catch

Real time is unforgiving. If a graphic breaks on air there is no re-render to hide behind. So the design has to be tested the way software is tested, with every state, every long name and every language considered before anyone goes live. That discipline suits us. It is the same discipline bilingual design needs: decide the rules first, then let the system run.

Why this matters for Wales

The Esteddfod reached a younger and more diverse audience while honouring its heritage, and it did so with a Welsh studio doing the graphics, not a London one. Real-time tools put broadcast-grade work within reach of teams that could not have bid for it five years ago. That is a change in who gets to make the work, and we think it is the most important thing to happen to our corner of the industry in a decade.