Technical artist explains new design opportunities
The Unreal Engine has enabled creators such as Anthea van Leeuwen, environment artist at Indie developer Playtonic Games, to produce visually stunning environments. Image by Anthea van Leeuwen
By Nicholas Bainbridge
Editor in Chief
Technical artist Thomas Shannon of Epic Games, the studio that produced “Fortnite” and “Gears of War,” visited High Point University to discuss the vast amount of new opportunities available to students, both inside and outside the video game industry.
On Oct. 29, Shannon gave a presentation at Phillips School of Business, highlighting the influence of Epic Games through its publicly available game engine. Unreal Engine provides users with the tools needed to design, develop and test their games. It can be used to construct high-resolution models and interactive environments.
Game engines of this caliber were once closely guarded software of video game companies. In 2015, Epic Games made Unreal Engine free to the public, allowing more people the ability to access state-of-the-art design tools.
Since Unreal Engine went public, it rocked much more than the video game industry. It allowed small-time Indie developers to better compete with major companies and shook up many other fields, Shannon explained.
Video games are not the only use for game engines. The ability to construct detailed digital environments is in high demand in a multitude of different fields, which Shannon used to reason that Unreal Engine should intrigue more than just game-design majors.
It is advantageous for architects to be able to convey how their plans will make a structure look. The more appealing the model, the easier it is to convince a client to go with a specific building design. This motivates architect firms to hire someone who can use game design software, like Unreal Engine, to create presentations that appeal to their clients.
Car companies have also taken a liking to Epic Games’ software, using it to design and show off their vehicles. In 2016, Toyota partnered with CGI company Rotor Studios to create Toyota Showroom 360, a program that allows customers to easily and intuitively examine Toyota vehicles in detail. This program, like several others in the automobile industry, runs off of the Unreal Engine.
Shannon was most passionate about the effects that the program has had on the rest of the entertainment industry, especially films.
“This is crazy,” said Shannon. “I cannot even begin to express the change that is happening to film and TV. If you are a film major, I am sorry. Everything you are learning now is going to be wrong in 1 years.”
By making use of interactive CGI worlds possible with game engines, the film industry is evolving. Shannon explained that programs like Unreal Engine allow filmmakers to do post-pro-
duction in real-time, rather than using a green-screen. This process commonly uses an augmented reality system that allows actors to see the same effects as their characters.
These ideas are already being put into practice. Several scenes in “Rogue One” were completely rendered in Unreal Engine, particularly those involving the droid K-2SO.
“This is happening right now,” said Shannon. “Every major movie studio is using Unreal Engine or some other game engine in their productions.”
While there is a wealth of positions opening up, there are few people who can fill them. Due to the newness of the technology, most applicants are on relatively equal standing when applying for a position involving Unreal Engine design. This gives young people a unique opportunity to rapidly grow to prominence and become one of the first experts in this new style of CGI design.
“This is a huge opportunity because no one knows what the they are doing, and as students, you don’t know what you are doing anyway. No one can claim to be an expert, so you are on an equal footing.”
Unreal Engine has been criticized as being too complex for people with limited programming knowledge, which led Epic Games to support the Twinmotion program. Twinmotion is a royalty-free software that provides a simple program for people with less coding experience to easily make high-quality environment design.
While it is more accessible than Unreal Engine, it also has more limitations, as the simplified format does not permit more complex programming. Shannon expressed that efforts are being made for the integration of Twinmotion and Unreal Engine, thereby allowing files to be opened in each and facilitating a transition from a novice to a proficient programmer.
Unreal Engine, as well as other free software, can be downloaded at https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/.