Lightcraft Opens the Spark Story Beta, Putting Gaussian Splat Scans at the Center of Browser Previs

Lightcraft Technology has opened a rolling beta of Spark Story, a browser previs system that builds shots around gaussian splat scans of real locations. Lightcraft built the Previzion real time VFX system and the Jetset mobile virtual production app before releasing Spark, its browser based collaborative platform, and Spark Story is the first module of that platform.

Spark Story loads a full script, a splat scan of a location, a generated 3D environment and 3D assets into one scene, and shots are built by keyframing camera moves or by driving the camera with an iPhone. Camera work is grounded in real camera specs, sensor formats and physical dimensions.

Spark holds scenes, shots, assets, scans, takes and lens metadata in one collaborative graph as the system of record, with Spark Story covering the design phase and Jetset covering the on set production phase. Lightcraft previewed Spark Story at NAB 2026, a year after showing real time 3DGS pipelines at NAB 2025.

Four features arrived with the beta, which Lightcraft demonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2026 from 21 to 23 July at booth 512. The iOS app gained one click real time 24p and 25p live action compositing, placing a real actor into the virtual environment and showing the composite while the shot is framed. A 3D asset and environment library ships with more than 300 3D assets and more than 25 prebuilt environments.

Spark Atlas, a cross platform high speed video and metadata transfer app, syncs each captured take to the Spark database and attaches it to the correct 3D scene and script section. Direct USD loading accepts files from Blender, Unreal Engine and Maya without a conversion to USDZ first. iOS capture shoots 24 and 25 fps in full 4K, which Jetset could not do, and scanning a QR code turns an iPhone into the camera.

Eliot Mack, the CEO and co-founder, names USD and USDZ for assets and standard Gaussian splat formats for environments.

Spark Story runs in Chrome on Mac, Windows or Linux with nothing to install, and the companion iPhone and iPad app shares the same live database. In Mack's words, "Spark is not a desktop application and will not become one." Mack describes Spark Story as a previs and collaboration layer that works with splats and existing assets, and not a render engine.

Mack cites a location costing $3,000 a day that a team can scan once and then work as if standing on it for the whole film. Spark Story is $29.95 per month, which covers starting a team and inviting two additional users, with general launch projected for autumn 2026. Access is by waitlist, granted in rounds.

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