Week 1 - Forefront Friday: Unreal Engine 4

The forefront of the video game industry can be identified by an array of different artefacts, individuals and processes. I think a good indicator of the forefront is when a technique, process or piece of software changes the way practitioners within the industry create their games. I believe Unreal Engine 4 is one such piece of software.

Throughout this year I have been building my workflow around real time rendering through Unreal Engine 4. As an environment artist I consider this an essential piece of software because it is the primary method I use to display my art. Real time graphics have offered me a new way to interact with my work during production, giving me instant feedback to any creative changes I make meaning I no longer have to wait for a render to finish before I can see the final result of my work. It is largely for this reason that I believe Unreal Engine in particular is at the forefront of not just the games industry but across all areas of 3D visualisation.

Instead of a static image displayed on screen, Unreal Engine offers artists dynamic vantage points displayed in real time. If they find an issue they can then make changes immediately with instant feedback. This is great from a design perspective as artists no longer have to wait for hours at a time to get a new rendering of a proposed change. This emphasis on interaction has played a big part in design firms within the architectural sector turning to real-time technology for visual solutions. From the Unreal Engine blog, Ken Pimentel lists Italian architectural firm Lissoni Associates and Neoscape, a creative agency that focuses on design for real estate, as companies revolutionizing their design process through interactive real-time graphics powered by Unreal Engine. (Pimentel 2018).

Indeed, my main reason for choosing to study at the University of Hertfordshire was that my architecture company was looking to get into real time visualisation using Unreal Engine, and I felt that there was a lot I didn’t know about this field and I could see there were a lot of benefits to using real time rendering. Because of these Unreal Engine’s relevance at the forefront of the field of 3D visualisation is constantly increasing. It has shifted its identity away from being solely known as a tool for game development, to a legitimate means of producing high end visualisations for numerous industries ranging from film to architecture.

The droid from the film Star Wars: Rogue One (2017) was rendered in real time using Unreal Engine, a first for the industry. As real time graphics displays are making it easier for film makers and artists to receive instant feedback from creative decisions, costly render times are also being negated. This coupled with the Engine’s unbeatable price point of completely free, has solidified the software at the forefront of 3D visualisation.

I believe the adoption of Unreal Engine across the different industries of the creative economy is Marshall Mcluhan’s concept of the Global village in action. We are seeing the differences of software and terminology across distinct fields becoming smaller and smaller. This could ultimately change the way we perceive mediums such as film, games and architecture, especially when they are driven by the same technology and methodologies.

PIMENTEL, K. (2018) Moving Beyond the Image: Test Drive Your Visual Designs. [Online] Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/moving-beyond-the-image-test-drive-your-visual-designs [Accessed: 11/06/2018]

POLYGON. (2017). Star Wars: Rogue One’s best character was rendered in real time, a cinema first. Available at: https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/1/14777806/gdc-epic-rogue-one-star-wars-k2so [Accessed: 11/06/2018]