Feature film where the entire or predominant visual world is digitally constructed — Pixar to stop-motion. Camera, lighting, composition all happen in virtual space.
When you're working on a CG feature, you're operating in an inverse world: the camera doesn't exist, lights are shader parameters, and the set boundaries are defined by the 3D engine. A CG feature is created entirely or predominantly in digital space — whether photorealistic, like in motion-capture dramas, or stylized, like in Pixar features. This fundamentally distinguishes it from hybrid productions, which combine live-action footage with VFX additions.
On set — or rather, in virtual production — your work functions as a digital Director of Photography. You position non-physical cameras, set lights that have no wattage, and compose frames within a software environment that can be re-rendered as many times as needed. This offers radical freedom: you can change the focal length on take 47 without readjusting the lights. At the same time, you need the same visual language — leading lines, depth staging, color harmony — as with real cameras. Only, everything must be consciously constructed. There are no random details that create authenticity.
In practice, two main approaches are distinguished: Motion Capture (Avatar, Planet of the Apes) overlays real actor performances onto digital bodies and sets; Full 3D Animation (Toy Story, Inside Out) dispenses with live-action entirely. With motion capture, you work with reference footage and must later decide how much of the performance detail you want to preserve or smooth out. In full animation, you design every movement, every glance from intention — no spontaneity from the set, but maximum control over timing and storytelling.
Important: CG features require a rethink of lighting design. Real lights have falloff, diffusion, reflections — natural irregularities. In digital space, you must actively add these, otherwise everything will appear flat and perfect (and therefore dead). The rendering process is your final exposure; you don't sit at home in the edit suite, but might orchestrate weeks of recalculation time. Every change costs. This is the real difference: not more creative freedom in the classic sense, but a different freedom — and entirely different constraints.