Lanterns

Lanterns is DC Studios’ HBO original drama series centered on Green Lanterns John Stewart and Hal Jordan, premiering on HBO Max in August 2026. The show follows the two intergalactic cops as they are pulled into a dark, earth-based mystery, blending grounded detective storytelling with the larger-scale mythology of the DC Universe for a more serious, cinematic take on the Green Lantern world. Production began in February 2025, and HBO Max released the first teaser in March 2026 ahead of the August premiere.

SCANable supported Lanterns with high-resolution 3D laser scanning for visual effects, helping capture actors, sets, and environments with precision for the VFX pipeline. That scan data supports digital doubles, set extensions, and accurate spatial reference, helping the series maintain realism while integrating complex visual effects seamlessly.

Grounded science fiction is a measurement problem

A show that pairs intergalactic mythology with earthbound detective work has to make the fantastic sit inside the ordinary. That only holds if the ordinary is genuinely accurate.

When a scene’s real elements are measured — the room, the street, the vehicle, the person — anything added to them inherits that credibility. When the real elements are approximated, the added elements have nothing solid to sit against, and the whole frame reads as constructed.

This is why environment capture matters more on grounded material than on pure spectacle, not less.

Laser scanning and photogrammetry answer different questions

Laser scanning measures space with high geometric certainty. It is the right instrument for the volume of a room, the run of a wall, the true distance between two things.

Photogrammetry excels at surface — the fine detail and texture on a subject, particularly a person or an object at close range.

Most shots need both, registered into one real-world coordinate space. Keeping them aligned at capture time is what allows a performer, a prop, and a location to assemble in a single frame later without anyone rescaling anything. Our set and location scanning covers the spatial half.

Spatial reference is the unglamorous deliverable

Not every scan becomes a hero asset. A significant share of the data on a series like this is reference — the geometry a VFX team uses to place, scale, light, or track something else correctly.

Reference is cheap to capture on the day and impossible to capture afterward. Once a set is struck, a measured record is the only version of it that still exists. Productions that skip this discover the cost months later, when a shot needs a dimension nobody wrote down.

Set extension across an episodic schedule

Practical builds stop where the budget stops. Everything above and beyond is CG, and on a series that join has to hold across a whole season, in episodes shot months apart by different directors.

Extensions modeled outward from measured point-cloud geometry match at the seam because they share the practical set’s exact dimensions. That consistency is what keeps the world coherent from episode one to the finale.

Digital doubles for costumed leads

Costumed action generates shots the performer cannot safely or practically be in — flight, impacts, and sequences staged in environments that do not exist.

Those cuts survive only if the double is faithful. Our arrays fire every camera at the same instant, so there is no drift from a performer breathing mid-capture and no hand cleanup eroding likeness. See cyberscanning for how that works, and digital doubles for what it produces.

Our Mobile CyberSCAN™ Studios deploy to the production, so performers scan in full costume between setups. Everything ships after retopology, texturing, and render-ready builds.

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