Don't miss the new and improved Raw Pre-Show set live every Monday night on the award-winning WWE Network.

If you haven’t watched the Raw Pre-Show on the award-winning WWE Network, you have been missing what is arguably the most technologically groundbreaking program in WWE history. A hosted studio show may seem like nothing new, but what is revolutionary is the Raw Pre-Show set, because what you see on WWE Network doesn’t exist — at least, not physically. In reality, it’s a virtual studio.

Click here for photos of the groundbreaking set |  WWE Raw Pre-Show on the WWE Network

WWE.com took a tour of the state-of-the-art facility and discovered all there is to know about WWE’s latest foray into cutting-edge television.

“Virtual technology has really advanced to the point that when you are watching TV, you’re not sure if you’re watching a virtual set or a real set,” said Dan Keene, director of engineering at WWE’s Television Studio. “It’s been on our radar for about five years, and it has gotten better and better. It was just time to bring it to WWE.”

Though using green screen technology to create backgrounds behind TV hosts and meteorologists is now considered commonplace, Keene said the new virtual studio takes it to an entirely new level.

“The difference between this technology and traditional green screen technology is that these cameras are aware of where they are on a virtual set,” he said. “A traditional green screen, like a weather map, is going to show the same flat image regardless of whether the camera shoots a close-up or a wide shot. These cameras are aware of size and proportions, and will size what you see accordingly. The magic is that when the cameras move up, down or roll across the tracks, the virtual set moves and rotates on camera.”

According to KC Acampora, one of four rotating directors on the Raw Pre-Show, the robotic cameras are “the biggest difference between directing a show on this virtual set and a physical set. Every single shot you see is pre-programmed in the system. You then fire the pre-programmed shots that move the cameras using a touchscreen. We’ve created over 20 pre-programmed shots and programmed the show so that every shot you see on TV has camera movement.”

Dan Cerasale, lead designer of TV Graphics, is part of a team that faces the daily challenges of turning ideas into virtual reality. "We are more set designers than we are graphic designers,” he said. “Building a virtual set is no different than the way a carpenter would build a physical set, but a carpenter has to buy materials. [Here,] you have to think of the set as something that really exists in the physical world.”

With the introduction of the new studio, WWE immediately became immersed in creating virtual sets on short deadlines.

“It took three months to build the virtual Raw Pre-Show set that they delivered with the studio,” Cerasale said. “It would take us only one month to build the same set. We’re going to be moving our international TV shows into the virtual studio, so new virtual sets will be created from scratch.

With a state-of-the-art facility eliminating the need to build large physical sets going forward, Keene is confident that there are no limits to what the virtual studio can be used for.

“If production can dream it and graphics can design it, we can do it,” he said. “We can create a beach setting, a Christmas setting or a virtual press box to put in the arena. It really can be used to create anything.”