Production Designer Role in Early VP Workflow?

Hey everyone, I'm Elena, a producer currently diving deep into a new sci-fi series with heavy virtual production elements. We're leaning heavily on UE5 for many of our previs and even some in-camera VFX shots. It’s exciting, but also new territory in some respects.

I'm finding that the lines are blurring a bit in the early stages of world-building, especially when it comes to the production designer's input. Traditionally, they'd be sketching, mood boarding, and really setting the visual tone early on, which then gets translated by others. Now, with real-time engines, it feels like they could (or should?) be more directly involved in shaping the 3D environments much sooner.

We've experimented with having our PD providing extremely detailed concepts for environments which then get built virtually. But sometimes it feels like a bit of a disconnect between their vision and the 3D team's interpretation in engine. I'm wondering if we should be rethinking this process from the ground up.

So, with the rise of virtual production and real-time engines like UE5, how has the role of the production designer changed in the early stages of world-building from your experience? Are they getting more hands-on with the actual digital assets earlier?