As a seasoned movie enthusiast with decades of immersion in the silver screen world, I must admit that the latest developments in the realm of video game technology have left me utterly spellbound. The progress being made by Epic Games and their Unreal Engine is nothing short of revolutionary.
The creators of Fortnite, Epic Games, unveiled the latest version of their flagship product, Unreal Engine 5.5, during their Unreal Fest event on Tuesday. This powerful video game development tool, which has been utilized to create not just top-tier video games but also visually stunning series like “The Mandalorian” and Tim Miller’s upcoming Amazon TV show “Secret Level,” was showcased with previews of new features. Epic Games takes immense pride in Unreal Engine and continues to enhance it, aiming to make it a popular choice among Hollywood production teams.
Currently, Epic is particularly focused on Unreal Engine’s novel “MegaLights” experiment, allowing users to manipulate a significantly larger number of lights compared to previous versions. These lights are dynamic, capable of casting realistic area shadows, and can even illuminate volumetric fog.
10 years and a half ago when I joined Epic, there was a significant gap between creating content for games and movies. In films, they rarely concern themselves with polygon or triangle counts, texture budgets, or lighting budgets because audiences were accustomed to post-production enhancements. If creators wanted to leverage real-time technology, they had to work within numerous constraints such as low resolution meshes, limited object surfaces, and a maximum of a few lights in a scene. However, with MegaLights, you can now add up to 1000 lights in a single scene without worrying about calculations! Unreal Engine will take care of it all, resulting in stunning visuals right before your eyes.
As a passionate movie enthusiast, I found myself captivated during the Unreal Fest panel when Libreri introduced directors Sam Miller (“Deadpool,” “Love, Death + Robots”) and Wes Ball (“Maze Runner,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”). They shared insights on their early adoption of the Unreal Engine in cinematic production. Sam Miller elucidated his creative process for his upcoming Amazon series, “Secret Level,” where he’s leveraged this powerful tool to seamlessly integrate renowned video game IP into each episode. Remarkably, some of these episodes were crafted using actual builds from the games themselves within Unreal Engine.
Miller emphasized the advantages of Unreal’s latest technology to EbMaster, explaining: “To sum it up for those in Hollywood, I would say this: filmmaking is essentially done during preparation. The enhancements that Unreal is adding to their system enable you to preview your movie, even whole scenes and sequences, at a high quality. This means the entire team can visualize everything, leading to a greater consensus that ‘we’ll just pre-visualize it’ and then everyone will carry on with their tasks. However, the pre-visualization often serves as a blueprint for the film, which is frequently consulted, almost like a guiding principle. Therefore, the better the pre-vis looks, the more thoroughly thought through the scene is, and the more efficiently everyone can proceed with turning it into the real world. Consequently, Unreal’s tools not only improve the quality of the visualization but also generate excitement about the sequence of shots or the project as a whole.
During the Unreal showcase, it was announced that Epic had formed a partnership with Paramount, allowing them to integrate the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” universe into “Fortnite”. This collaboration will enable players to create their own games based on this intellectual property using the Unreal Editor for Fortnite.
On the UEFN’s standpoint, it’s intriguing that Paramount is permitting individuals to utilize well-known film IPs to create new experiences. This could mark the start of intellectual properties being accessible across various platforms and actively engaging with communities, as Libreri pointed out.
Saxs Persson, head of Epic’s UEFN, outlined the objectives for blending Hollywood with Unreal Engine, a move that goes beyond filmmaking and television production, instead empowering consumers to engage with content within gaming environments at their convenience. This merging is set to influence the broader creator economy in an impactful way.
In simpler terms, Persson said they aim to expand the possibilities for creators using Unreal Engine. Just as everyone can create photorealistic, real-time content now, they want to ensure that even newcomers, straight out of school, can produce equally impressive and impactful work. However, they also recognize the powerful inspiration that comes from intellectual property (IP), such as fan creations. The collaboration with Paramount is about providing access to ‘Turtles’ IP, enabling creators within Fortnite to make their own Turtles game, publish it, and potentially enjoy commercial success – all with a simple click agreement. This easy access to IP could revolutionize how we approach fan creations and the development of new intellectual properties.
In terms of maintaining IP vitality and innovation, Sony’s “Concord,” a now-defunct PlayStation live service game, stands out uniquely in light of Miller’s “Secret Level.” Despite being shut down shortly after its release due to low sales, the last fresh content related to the game that fans can anticipate is what will be presented in Miller’s series upon its December 10th release on Amazon Prime Video.
Miller mentioned that he hopes people rediscover their interest in the game because the team was delightful to collaborate with and they had an enjoyable experience. It’s intriguing as some might wonder why this is mentioned. Miller would respond, well, we began this project three years ago, and at that time, the team wasn’t working on games that were already released – especially the new ones like ‘Concord’. We started earlier than them, and occasionally, they adopt our designs for their game.
Even though Unreal Engine 5.5 is currently in previews, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney hinted at future plans for Unreal 6 during their presentation on Tuesday. As more developments unfold, Miller remains optimistic about what the Epic team might achieve to bridge the divide between the special effects communities of Hollywood and gaming in the near future.
Miller mentioned that our technology is almost on par with non-real-time rendering tools in terms of visual effects and animation. However, he thinks we need a bit more refinement, an additional level of realism, to seamlessly blend Unreal content, digital humans, etc., with live action. We’re not quite there yet, he said, but we’re getting closer, moving up the slope towards the other side of the uncanny valley, but not over it completely. He emphasized the need for tools that can bridge the gap between the digital and human realm, so that viewers don’t feel something is amiss.
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2024-10-02 00:52