When Lightcraft unveiled Jetset a couple of years ago, the pitch was all about making virtual production easier. Spark Story, announced at SIGGRAPH 2026, feels like the next logical step. Instead of helping filmmakers once they're ready to shoot, it's designed for everything that happens before that.
After seeing the platform in action, the biggest takeaway is that Spark Story isn't trying to replace Blender or Unreal Engine, nor is it another AI filmmaking tool looking to fit in; rather, it's built around the screenplay.
That was one of the most reassuring things about the new SIGGRAPH demo I saw. Open Spark Story and you're greeted by your script, not a complicated 3D workspace. You can write inside the platform or import a screenplay from Final Draft or Fountain, organise it into scenes and start building from there. It feels like creator-first software, where the technology supports the story rather than becoming the story, which in these days of AI being forced into everything feels refreshingly creative.
As Elijah Welch, president at Lightcraft, explained, Spark grew directly out of lessons learned from Jetset, the free virtual production app for iPhone. "Jetset was very much […] built more for a single operator," he said. "People need a place to come together with their team very early on and start to put the pieces together, so that essentially we can get that shared visual alignment from the earliest days of inception before going into production. That's what Spark is all about – a shared creative platform for filmmakers to come together early and start to see their stories."
Watching that happen is surprisingly convincing. During the demo, Welch took a scripted scene and quickly turned it into a simple yet usable 3D previs sequence with a lead character, camera placements, and basic animation. Sets can be built from your own Gaussian Splats, imported USD assets from Blender, Maya or Unreal Engine, or assembled using Spark's own library of more than 300 props and over 25 environments.
Then came the feature that really sold the idea: when Welch picked up his iPhone, opened the Spark app and walked straight into the virtual set using AR. As he moved around the room, his camera position updated live in the browser, letting everyone else watch the shot being framed in real time before it instantly played back. It suddenly became obvious what Lightcraft is aiming for – your writer, director, cinematographer and producer don't all need to be in the same place to start making creative decisions. They can all be working inside the same virtual production long before anyone spends money travelling to a location or building a set.
According to Welch, that's exactly how early users are approaching it. "People are trying to go as quickly as possible from loading environments, pulling out the iPhone or iPad, and going right into that real-time compositing mode and putting humans in the scene," he said. "That speed and ease of use is what's definitely attractive to people right now."
The SIGGRAPH beta also introduces several new features. Spark Story now includes a growing 3D asset library, direct USD importing without conversion, real-time compositing that can generate what Lightcraft calls "Superdailies" on an iPhone, and Spark Atlas, a companion desktop app that automatically syncs takes, metadata and production files back into the project.
I was pleased to see Spark Story also keeps one foot in the real world. During the demo, I asked whether productions could be locked to specific camera packages, rather than letting teams storyboard shots with equipment they'll never actually have or be able to afford. Welch confirmed that productions can be configured around a chosen camera, so every new shot starts with the gear that's actually available, making previs much more useful once filming begins.
In a press statement for SIGGRAPH, Lightcraft CEO and co-founder Eliot Mack believes that kind of planning will help filmmakers tackle more ambitious productions. "A new day is dawning for filmmakers who want to break free from old formulas," Mack said. "With Spark Story, ambitious teams can rewrite the rules of Hollywood, making the projects they want to see, without the massive costs and infrastructure usually required for big ideas."
Welch summed up Spark Story with a line that's difficult to argue with after seeing the demo. "Shoot your movie before you shoot your movie." That's a simple way of describing what Spark Story does, but it also neatly explains why it feels different from the growing list of AI-powered filmmaking tools. It's less interested in generating ideas than giving creative teams a better way to test them together.
