Unreal Engine 4.23 ships with all-new features for the latest in digital storytelling & virtual production
Los Angeles, CA — Epic Games is at the SIGGRAPH 2019 conference in Los Angeles this week to reveal Unreal Engine features that are changing the art of filmmaking and enabling new virtual production techniques for final pixels in real time. Epic is also demonstrating and hosting sessions on photorealistic digital humans, advancements in ray tracing, augmented reality, virtual reality, visualization, and live events technology.
Unreal Engine enables filmmakers, broadcasters, animators, game developers, designers, and visualization specialists achieve their creative vision, with no compromises in quality and scalability.
Unreal Engine 4.23, available now as a preview release, brings even more advancements to real-time and virtual production workflows with multi-user editing, in-camera VFX, ray tracing improvements, the introduction of the anticipated Chaos physics and destruction tool (in beta), broader support for LED productions using nDisplay, and much more.
Key features and capabilities in Unreal Engine 4.23 include:
In-camera VFX: Filmmakers can now achieve final shots on set thanks to Unreal Engine and advancements in LED wall technology using out-of-the-box features. Filming live actors against photoreal digital backgrounds empowers filmmakers to capture completely realistic lighting, reflections, and effects — all in-camera, with little to no post-production.
Multi-user editor for virtual scouting: Enabling filmmakers to explore digital environments using VR headsets or computer screens, virtual sets have become a key aspect of virtual production that unlocks more creative decision-making earlier in the process. Using the upgraded multi-user editor, teams can collaborate within virtual environments to move objects, block actors, and compose shots, all in a visually accurate representation of a scenes location, with changes synchronized across all users.
Support for Cinema 4D: Unreal Engine now supports Maxons Cinema 4D. Using the Datasmith plugin as part of the Unreal Studio Beta, creators can natively import .c4d files directly into Unreal Engine with support for scene hierarchies, geometry, materials, lights, cameras, and baked animations. Cinema 4Ds save for Cineware command allows users to easily bake complex procedural motion graphics directly into real-time scenes through the Unreal Engine Sequencer cinematic editor.
Chaos physics and destruction (Beta): Unreal Engines new Chaos physics and destruction simulation system brings cinematic-quality visuals in real-time in scenes with massive-scale levels of destruction, delivering unprecedented artist control over content creation.
Niagara VFX improvements: Niagara particle systems can now be generated by the physics simulation in Chaos. Whenever an object fractures, users can generate smoke and dust, as well as more tiny fractured bits that enhance the physics simulations visuals. Niagara simulations can now also generate geometry that is used by reflections and shadows when ray tracing.
Ray tracing advancements: A number of performance and stability improvements are included in UE 4.23, including sampling improvements with Ray Tracer and Path Tracer, newly-supported geometry types and material types, and multi-view support for VR and split screens.
nDisplay: Users can now use nDisplay, the system for rendering imagery on multiple synchronized display devices, to project Unreal Engine content onto a wider variety of physical installations, including curved and spherical screens, and scenarios that involve complex blending between overlapping projections.
Microsoft HoloLens 2 Support: Developers building mixed reality experiences for HoloLens 2 now have production-ready support, complete with APIs for the platforms unique capabilities. Key features include streaming and native deployment, finger tracking, gesture recognition, meshing, voice input, spatial anchor pinning, and more.
Epics SIGGRAPH events kick off tonight with a public Unreal Engine User Group event at the Orpheum Theatre featuring a stellar speaker lineup, including Digital Domains Doug Roble (Avengers: Endgame), The Third Floors Kaya Jabar (Game of Thrones season 8), ILMxLABs Vicki Dobbs Beck (Vader Immortal), Disney Imagineerings Bei Yang (Disney Parks: Star Wars Galaxys Edge), and many more.
Throughout the rest of this week, Epic will be based in booth #1319, where they will host a packed Unreal Engine demo and learning theater schedule, plus a series of Tech Talks taking place on Wednesday, July 31 in Room 405, covering Chaos physics and destruction, virtual production workflows, ray tracing, and in-camera VFX in Unreal Engine 4.23.
Plus, Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney will address the SIGGRAPH community in a special session, Foundational Principles and Technologies of the Metaverse, on Tuesday, July 30 at 10:45 AM.
Epics additional SIGGRAPH 2019 activities include:
— Epics Lead Technical Animator Chris Evans is bringing his passion project, Il Divino: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR, exclusively to the Immersive Pavilion.
— 3Lateral Founder and Epic Games Director of Digital Humans Vladimir Mastilovic will speak about creating lifelike digital humans on the Tuesday, July 30 panel FACS at 40.
— In addition, Vlad will be a panelist at NVIDIA Presents: Progress Toward Real-Time, Photo-Realistic Digital Humans session which will explore both the potential and challenges of creating digital humans.
For a full lineup of Epics activities at SIGGRAPH and additional details, please visit: https://www.unrealengine.com/
About Unreal Engine
Epic Games Unreal Engine technology brings high-quality games to PC, console, mobile, AR and VR platforms. Creators also use Unreal for photorealistic visualization, interactive product design, film, virtual production, mixed reality TV broadcast and animated entertainment. Follow @UnrealEngine and download Unreal for free at unrealengine.com .
Epic Games Unreal Engine technology brings high-quality games to PC, console, mobile, AR and VR platforms. Creators also use Unreal for photorealistic visualization, interactive product design, film, virtual production, mixed reality TV broadcast and animated entertainment. Follow @UnrealEngine and download Unreal for free at unrealengine.com .
About Epic Games
Founded in 1991, Epic Games is the creator of Fortnite, Unreal, Gears of War, Shadow Complex, and the Infinity Blade series of games. Epic’s Unreal Engine technology, which brings high-fidelity, interactive experiences to PC, console, mobile, AR, VR and the Web, is freely available at unrealengine.com . The Epic Games store offers a handpicked library of games, available at epicgames.com . Follow @EpicGames for updates.
Founded in 1991, Epic Games is the creator of Fortnite, Unreal, Gears of War, Shadow Complex, and the Infinity Blade series of games. Epic’s Unreal Engine technology, which brings high-fidelity, interactive experiences to PC, console, mobile, AR, VR and the Web, is freely available at unrealengine.com . The Epic Games store offers a handpicked library of games, available at epicgames.com . Follow @EpicGames for updates.
