The opening ceremony for the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou featured digital fireworks that are more friendly to the environment and more dazzling to watch.

The visual effects team crafted 3D virtual firework explosions and blended them into the video footage using AR technology, enabling more realistic light and shadow details.

What's more, the visual technologies allowed a rare, top-down view of the fireworks, which is hard to film with real explosions.

"This time, our team has thought of many ways to use digital fireworks, which are created with 3D animation and AR technologies, to replace the real fireworks at the key moment without missing the effect," Sha Xiaolan, chief director of the opening ceremony, told China Media Group (CMG). "Audiences at the site can still experience the fireworks atmosphere through a huge screen that is 185 meters wide and 15 meters high."

According to video footage obtained by CMG showing the studio that created the digital fireworks, the Unreal Engine from video game giant Epic Games is used to render the effects.

For the AR part, the special effects artists conducted real-time 3D scanning and modeling of all the structures along the Qiantang River to make sure the fireworks looked real by lighting up their surroundings at the exact right time.

"We have simulated the entire performance in special effect engines," said Li Yan, director of AR for the opening ceremony.

The opening ceremony took place on Saturday at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center Stadium, also known as the "Big Lotus."

According to Sha, the new technologies can still touch the audience with the theme of "people, beauty and emotions."

"The most important thing is that we want to spread our philosophy of environmental protection, and that's why we finally made the decision (to cut real fireworks)," Sha added.

China is pushing hard to reduce carbon emissions in the country and plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.