Epic Games has released a major new version of Unreal Engine, which has become a mainstay in virtual production, that includes new features and improvements to performance, visual fidelity, and productivity that the company said will benefit broadcasters, game developers and other creators in the media and entertainment industries. 

Notable new features for the new Unreal Engine 5.4 include features for broadcast (Unreal Engine Motion Design Mode, previously known as Avalanche) that are already being used in sports production, and new capabilities for virtual production (including Unreal's virtual camera app, Unreal VCam, on Android for the first time).

Epic Games is positioning the Unreal Engine Motion Design Mode, which was used by CBS in producing the Super Bowl earlier this year, as a game-changing environment meticulously crafted to empower motion graphics designers with precisely tailored tools. 

Motion Design Mode offers a new layout is designed to ensure seamless workflow initiation and sustained productivity, the company said. Equipped with specialized tools for the 2D canvas and an enhanced world outliner featuring intuitive hierarchies, Motion Design Mode provides a comprehensive suite including 3D shapes, cloners, effectors, modifiers, animators, and features for non-linear animations. This dedicated mode is engineered to elevate the motion graphics design experience, offering a robust and user-friendly platform for designers to bring their creative visions to life. 

Over 300 companies and 550 individuals have been beta-testing Unreal Engine Motion Design Mode since last year. CBS Sports used numerous Unreal Engine tools to deliver the stunning Super Bowl LVIII motion graphics package designed around the Las Vegas strip. CBS Sports also used Unreal Engine to kick off the show opener with an XR promo shoot at the MSG Sphere and live AR graphics during the game. 

Another notable upgrade in 5.4 is Unreal VCam for Android, which is now available on Google Play. 

This is the same app that has been known as Live Link VCAM and only available on iOS until now. The new release of Unreal VCam will enable virtual production-ready cinematography in real time from any Android device.  Unreal VCam enables filmmakers to translate traditional concepts like camera lensing, framing, and movement into Unreal Engine’s digital realm. 

It allows users to record realistic camera takes that can be further fine-tuned in editor to create elegant final compositions when assembled in Unreal Engine’s Sequencer. Review early set environments through the lens, previs shot cameras before a shoot, capture real takes during principal photography, create a new shot in post, or all of the above.

A video overview of the many new features in UE 5.4 is available below. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltQfA5Wqdik

The Walt Disney Company and Epic Games have announced a major alliance to collaborate on all-new games and what the companies are calling a new "entertainment universe." As part of the agreement, Disney will also invest $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games. 

The deal is notable in that it marks Disney’s biggest ever investment in games and will provide Disney with a new platform for showcasing its characters, brands and stories. It also builds on a longstanding relationship between Disney and Epic Game's Fortnight that goes back to Epic Games’ participation in the 2017 Disney Accelerator program.

While Disney and others have backed away from some of their metaverse efforts, the agreement will see the creation of a metaverse-like “open entertainment universe” with Fortnight that will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more.

In this entertainment universe, the companies said players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other. This will all be powered by Unreal Engine.

In a call with analysts, Disney CEO Bob Iger said: “Our new relationship with Epic Games will create a transformational games and entertainment universe that integrates Disney's world-class storytelling into Epic's cultural phenomenon, Fortnite, enabling consumers to play, watch, create and shop for both digital and physical goods.”

“This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of video games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion,” Iger said during Disney’s fiscal Q1 2024 earnings call. “The new immersive universe will allow fans to unleash their own creativity and experience the Disney stories in worlds that they love in groundbreaking new ways.”

Iger also stressed the growing importance of games among younger audiences and the opportunities the deal will create to reach them. “Younger audiences in particular are huge consumers of video games,” he said. “In fact, among millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, a significant amount of time spent on screen-based platforms is playing video games. This new universe from Disney and Epic provides us with a tremendous opportunity to not only meet more consumers where they are, but to allow more audiences to cultivate a bond with Disney's iconic brands and franchises, including Marvel, Star Wars and much more.”

The agreement expands an existing relationship between Disney and Epic Games. In the past, Disney and Epic Games have engaged hundreds of millions of players through Fortnite content integrations, season collaborations, in-game activations, and live events, including the Marvel Nexus War with Galactus, which drew more than 15.3 million concurrent players.

“Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio,” said Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder, Epic Games. “Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”

In the past, Unreal Engine has been used to produce assets and content across the Disney portfolio including in the development of video games like Kingdom Hearts 3 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor; in cinematic editing and animation for film and streaming; and in the creation of more than 15 Disney Parks attractions like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

With more than 3 billion video game players worldwide, Disney also said the agreement will further expand its existing games business, which shifted to a licensing business model in 2016. 

Currently, Disney is a leading games licensor working with developers and publishers, including on the best-selling superhero game of all-time, Marvel’s Spider-Man. Licensed games from Disney garnered more than 150 award nominations, wins and other accolades in 2023, including multiple Game of the Year nominations for Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Disney mobile games have 1.5 billion global installs, and to date, nine Disney games franchises have each grossed more than $1 billion in sales. In the U.S., the world’s largest games market, licensed titles from Disney regularly hit the annual top-10 best-sellers list, the company said. 

CARY, N.C.—Epic Games announced a $2 billion round of funding, with existing investor Sony Group Corporation as well as KIRKBI, the family-owned holding and investment company behind The LEGO Group, each investing $1 billion. 

The new funding will help Epic Games expand its work on building the metaverse and position the company for further growth by creating new social entertainment exploring the connection between digital and physical worlds, the companies said.

Epic continues to have only a single class of common stock outstanding and remains controlled by its CEO and founder, Tim Sweeney. 

“As we reimagine the future of entertainment and play we need partners who share our vision. We have found this in our partnership with Sony and KIRKBI,” said Tim Sweeney, CEO and founder, Epic Games in announcing the funding. “This investment will accelerate our work to build the metaverse and create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences and creators can build a community and thrive.” 

“As a creative entertainment company, we are thrilled to invest in Epic to deepen our relationship in the metaverse field, a space where creators and users share their time.” said Kenichiro Yoshida, chairman, president and CEO, Sony Group Corporation.

Yoshida also highlighted Epic Games' work in virtual production: “We are also confident that Epic’s expertise, including their powerful game engine, combined with Sony’s technologies, will accelerate our various efforts such as the development of new digital fan experiences in sports and our virtual production initiatives.”

Last week Epic Games’ Unreal Engine announced that its Unreal Engine 5 was now available to download. “With this release, we aim to empower both large and small teams to really push the boundaries of what’s possible, visually and interactively,” the company said.  “UE5 will enable you to realize next-generation real-time 3D content and experiences with greater freedom, fidelity, and flexibility than ever before.”

Some in the production industry had called Unreal Engine 5 a game changer prior to its release. 

In an interview last fall with TV Tech, Greig Fraser, who won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for his work on the Disney+ original and recently won an Oscar for his work on “Dune.” said: “When we did ‘The Mandalorian,’ we used off-the-shelf technologies like the Unreal game engine that were created for games, not TV production. Now you have technologies that are purpose-built for virtual production with many more capabilities. We’re still in the early days but the [upcoming] release of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 will be a game changer.”

Epic's post-money equity valuation is $31.5 billion. The closing of the investment is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—SMPTE has announced that its Rapid Industry Solutions (RIS) On-Set Virtual Production Initiative (OSVP) has received an Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games. 

The virtual production initiative is designed to bring together technology and thought leaders to quickly assess challenges relating to virtual production, establish goals, and make interoperability specifications, workflows, and best practices open and free to the industry along with supporting educational courses and webcasts. 

More than 40 companies and individual contributors from across the industry are collaborating as part of the RIS OSVP community to achieve this goal. 

The $150,000 Epic MegaGrant will help SMPTE speed up that initiative, which is its first Rapid Industry Solutions (RIS) effort.  

"This Epic MegaGrant is a wonderful validation of the work we've done so far, the model we're using to deliver results, and our ultimate goal of making those results open and free to the industry," said SMPTE Executive Director Barbara Lange. "We formed the RIS On-Set Virtual Production Initiative to address an important and specific industry need, and this support will add to our momentum and accelerate our work. Speaking on behalf of the SMPTE RIS OSVP community, I can say we're all tremendously grateful." 

SMPTE developed the RIS model to address rapidly evolving technologies and their application across the media and entertainment industry. 

With the goal of providing a clear, readily accessible framework for on-set virtual production, as well as much-needed resources for education and professional development, the SMPTE RIS OSVP Initiative is designed to help creatives, technologists, and executives to explore the full potential of powerful, real-time, 3D creative tools, including Epic's Unreal Engine. 

David Morin, industry manager, media & entertainment at Epic Games noted that "establishing interoperability standards and best practices for film and episodic content creators is essential to making virtual production workflows accessible to all storytellers. This initiative from SMPTE marks an important step forward for virtual production, a technique centered around use of Unreal Engine that has revolutionized the creation of interactive storytelling and entertainment.  We are pleased to support this effort through Epic MegaGrants, accelerating SMPTE's mission to drive the industry forward."  

More information about the SMPTE RIS OSVP Initiative is available at smpte.org/rapid-industry-solutions.

More about Epic MegaGrants can be found at unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants.

Additional TV Tech coverage of virtual productions and the SMPTE initiative can be found here and here. 

Virtual production techniques have a long history in Hollywood but have really exploded in popularity in the last two years, thanks to travel restrictions during the pandemic and a host of tech improvements. 

Boom time: Much of the current interest stems from the use of large LED walls and gaming engines to create the fantastic virtual worlds seen in “The Mandalorian.” 

“When we did ‘The Mandalorian,’ we used off-the-shelf technologies like the Unreal game engine that were created for games, not TV production,” said Greig Fraser, who won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for his work on the Disney+ original. “Now you have technologies that are purpose-built for virtual production with many more capabilities. We’re still in the early days but the [upcoming] release of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 will be a game changer.”

Many others agree: “There are hundreds of stages going up around the world and we’re directly involved in dozens of them already,” said Adam Schmidt, executive vice president at Planar, a supplier of LED panels that recently launched a virtual production initiative Planar Studios.

Gaming engines drive new production capabilities: “What is really exciting is [how] the film industry [is starting] to truly understand the power of game engine technology in the context of world-building,” explained Miles Perkins, industry manager of film and television at Epic Games. It recently released a new version of its gaming engine, Unreal Engine 4.27, with the highly anticipated full release of 5.0 set for early 2022. 

The 4.27 includes a host of new features designed to improve “quality, efficiency and ease of use” for virtual productions, Perkins said.

“When Epic Games releases the full version of Unreal 5, the current limits imposed on the cinematic architecture will be lifted, allowing for more realism,” said A. J. Wedding, co-founder of Orbital Studios.

Final pixel shooting: “The ability to shoot basically anywhere without travelling to that location was the primary driver” of interest in virtual productions early on but as the technology has improved, “the potential to reduce VFX time and costs is a big one,” explained Sean Sheridan, regional technical manager for the Americas at Brompton Technology, which has emerged as a major player in the virtual production tech space. 

That is improving the image quality of video shot of actors in front of LED walls without a lot of post-production work. “Final pixel-shooting [is] really hot,” added Michael Geissler, CEO at Mo-Sys Engineering, which recently released the VP Pro 4.27 software that has been used on virtual productions for Amazon and Netflix. 

Expertise is as important as technology: NEP, which recently launched its NEP Virtual Studios with the acquisition of Prysm Collective, Lux Machina and Halon Entertainment, has made providing production expertise a central part of their strategy, explained Zach Alexander, co-president of Lux Machina NEP Business unit at NEP Virtual Studios. 

To help the industry cope with the complexities of a virtual production, SMPTE has embarked on a high-profile virtual production initiative. “It has become very, very clear that education is a big obstacle, not only among professionals wanting to use the technology but in terms of training people to handle virtual productions,” said Kari Grubin, a consultant who is spearheading the project, which is focusing on such areas as interoperability, best practices and education. 

Educators are also getting involved. Sheridan College’s Screen Industries Research and Training (SIRT) Centre in Toronto, for example, has built a new Virtual Production Innovation Hub. “We really want to be a sandbox where creatives can advance the technologies and better understand how they can use it,” said SIRT production lead Jason Hunter.

New cameras shoot new virtual worlds: More innovation is coming from traditional vendors of production tech. The SIRT Center, for example, relies on a number of technologies from Blackmagic Design, including the URSA Mini Pro 12K. 

ARRI has also jumped into the virtual production sector in a big way. It created some smaller experimental stages in Munich and Burbank to integrate their products into those from other companies and launched a new virtual production studio in U.K. in the summer of 2021. The ARRI solutions group also worked with the German production company to set up a virtual production stage in Berlin.

© NAB 2021

BURBANK, CA—The awards committee of the Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) this week announced the winners of the 2019 HPA Engineering Excellence Awards.

The winners include:

• Adobe–Content-Aware Fill for Video in Adobe After Effects;
• Epic Games—Unreal Engine 4;
• Pixelworks—TrueCut Motion; and
• Portrait Displays Inc. and LG Electronics—CalMAN LUT-based Auto-Calibration with LG OLED TVs.

“Every year, it is an absolute pleasure and a privilege to witness the innovative work that is brewing in our industry,” said HPA Awards Engineering Committee chair Joachim Zell. “Judging by the number of entries, which was our largest ever, there is genuine excitement within our community to push our capabilities to the next level.

“It was a close race and shows us that the future is being plotted by the brilliance that we see in the Engineering Excellence Awards. Congratulations to the winners, and all the entrants, for impressive and inspiring work.”

A blue-ribbon judging panel selected the winners after a session held at IMAX on June 22. Winners will be honored Nov. 21 at the 14th Annual HPA Awards Gala at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.

Honorable Mentions were awarded to:

• Ambidio for Ambidio Looking Glass;
• Grass Valley, a Belden brand for Creative Grading; and
• Netflix for Photon.

The HPA Awards were founded in 2005. They recognize creative artistry and innovation in the professional media industry. Tickets for the 14th Annual HPA Awards will be available later this summer, HPA said.

The Engineering Excellence Award honors outstanding technical and creative ingenuity in media, content production, finishing, distribution and archive.

More information is available on the HPA website.

April 8, 2019 - Las Vegas, NV, NAB Show - Epic Games is at NAB 2019 to showcase the latest Unreal Engine broadcast technology integrations and workflows. Unreal Engine broadcast solutions and use cases are being demonstrated at the Las Vegas Convention Center April 8-11 at the Studio Xperience Booth #SL3824 alongside more than 50 appearances with customers such as NFL Network, FOX Sports, The Weather Channel, and more.

Epic Games is at NAB on the heels of accepting the first Technology and Engineering Emmy for Unreal Engine in the 2017-2018 category, “3D Engine Software for the Production of Animation” during last night’s 70th Annual Science & Technology Emmy Awards hosted by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Where to see Unreal Engine at NAB 2019:

— April 9, 2:00-2:30PM, N419, Epic Games Technical Product Manager Andy Blondin will present "Blurring the Lines Between Games, Film and Television: Epic Games Case Study"

— April 8-11, 11:00 and 11:30AM daily, #SL3824, Unreal Engine workflow presentations from Weather Channel's Michael Potts, Girraphic's Grant Werle, NFL Network's Pat Lee, Fox Sports' Zac Fields, MYREZE's Bjorn Mireze and Ben Grafchik of Sneaky Big

— April 8, 2:00PM, #SL3824 an interview with Kim Libreri, Epic Games CTO providing a general overview of Unreal Engine technology

— April 9, 1:00PM #SL3824 an interview with Andy Blondin, Epic Games Technical Product Manager, covering Unreal Engine broadcast features

— April 10, 3:30PM #SL3824 an interview with David Morin, Head of LA Lab, Epic Games talking about industry technology and Unreal Engine

— April 11, 12:00PM #SL3824 an interview with Ryan Mayeda, Technical Product Manager, Epic Games presenting about Unreal Engine and VFX pipelines

A range of Unreal Engine integration partners will be exhibiting at NAB, several of whom will showcase virtual production and real-time broadcast workflows. Those partners include: AJA Video Systems, AR Wall/AMD, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Bluefish 444, Brainstorm, ChyronHego, Maxon, Mosys, Ncam, NewTek, Procyc, Ross Video, Stype, The Future Group, Vizrt, wTVision, and Zero Density, along with many other customers featured in panels and presentations during the week.

Epic Games recently launched Unreal Engine 4.22, bringing powerful new features to content creators and storytellers. The release introduces ray tracing and a host of virtual production tools, including a new UI for the Composure compositing tool; support for OpenColorIO (OCIO) color profiles; Sequence Take Recorder for faster iteration and review of takes; multi-user collaborative editing features, and much more.

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.

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.

ATLANTA—On June 20, 2018 The Weather Channel blew away its viewers by apparently bringing a tornado into its studio. With the help of 3D augmented reality graphics rendered by The Future Group’s Frontier graphics creation system (processed and played out by Ross Video’s UX control system) and Mo-Sys’ camera tracking system, TWC meteorologist Jim Cantore appeared to experience the real-time ravages of a tornado in-studio as it progressed from an EF0 (Enhanced Fujita scale; winds 65-85 mph) to an EF5 (winds over 200 mph).

As the twister intensified, TWC viewers saw Cantore jump back from a falling electrical pole pulsing with electricity inside the studio. He was subsequently menaced by a flying 2x4 wooden beam that blasted through a studio TV monitor, and narrowly missed by a mangled red sedan that crashed through the studio ceiling; the left front headlight still flashing and clicking as Cantore soldiered on with his commentary. (A hyper-realistic outdoor camera view was interspersed with the studio shots; allowing Cantore to explain the tornado’s evolution from EF0 to EF5 throughout the broadcast.)

Eventually the lights flickered as the TWC studio began to fall apart under the storm’s ferocity. Jim Cantore took refuge in a “safe room” before the signal was apparently “lost” as TWC went to commercial. After the commercial break, Cantore was seen standing outside in the apocalyptic chaos left by the EF5 tornado; until the TWC’s studio outline appeared around him in grid form, and then rematerialized to its original undamaged appearance. (For the record, Cantore’s introduction and after-commercial conclusion were done live; the rest was prerecorded.)

As convincing as the tornado vignette was to watch—the SFX was worthy of a Hollywood disaster movie—none of the mayhem was real. Which was precisely the point: TWC is adopting the wow factor of augmented and virtual reality graphics to make its TV content incredibly compelling. 

“This is our bold first step into immersive weather presentation,” said Michael Potts, vice president of design for the Weather Group. Referring to the channel’s approach as “immersive mixed reality,” Potts said “we’re dropping the boundaries between what is real and what isn’t real, so we can take our talent and put them into the weather, or bring the weather into our studio. The goal for doing so is to create a much more meaningful viewing experience for the audience.”

'EXPLAINER VIDEO'

Creating this complex “explainer video” (as Potts calls it) of TWC’s in-studio tornado was a massive effort, requiring “lots of brainstorming sessions between The Weather Channel and The Future Group,” said Lawrence Jones; head of North America Operations for The Future Group.

“After we had all these brainstorming sessions together, TWC sent us a script that we used to create movie-style storyboards of the tornado video,” Jones said. “Once we agreed upon those boards, we created concept art to depict what these graphics would look like; including the flying 2x4 and the photo-realistic car. For this to work, every graphic element and overlay had to be planned out perfectly, so that it could be done within the limits of the technology.”

It took two months for The Future Group’s teams in Bulgaria, Norway, and the United States to create the AR graphics for the video. The graphics included the virtual TWC studio that rematerialized around Cantore after the commercial break. Once reconstructed in full onscreen, the virtual studio was indistinguishable from the real studio.

These graphics were designed to run on The Future Group’s Frontier graphics engine, which is based on the Unreal Engine gaming graphics system created by Epic Games. Ross began partnering with The Future Group in 2015 when it announced a seven-figure investment in the company, followed by a technology partnership a year later.

“The original Unreal Engine wasn’t designed for broadcast,” said Gideon Ferber, director of product management and business development for Ross Video’s Virtual Solution division. “So The Future Group built their own version of the Unreal Engine that included broadcast features such as genlock, frame buffers, and Fill/Key output. Ross then added the tracking integration, control interface, and everything else you need to operate Frontier on-air in a broadcast setting.”

[Read: NAB Show: Epic Games Integrates Unreal Engine With Strategic Partners]

With The Future Group’s equipment in place at TWC’s Atlanta production center, the crew held rehearsals to iron out the bugs and ready the segment for broadcast. These rehearsals included an enthusiastic Cantore, who memorized theatrical-style blocking (knowing where he physically had to be at what time) and learning his lines, alongside his regular broadcast duties.

Cantore’s hard work resulted in a realistic, apparently spontaneous on-air performance as he endured (and educationally exploited) the tornado’s wrath.

“Jim brought an amazing amount of life to this,” said Potts. “Yes, the graphics are amazing, and the technology underneath it makes it possible. But our talent drives this thing. With a wonderful narrative to work with, Jim was the hero of this project.”

MORE CHAOS TO COME?

TWC’s success in blending real video and AR graphics in Cantore’s tornado segment has won the network lots of positive attention and justified its push into AR/VR-enhanced content. Right now, TWC hopes to produce 80 percent of its programming using AR/VR by 2020.

TWC will air its second AR-enhanced explainer video on July 31.

“We’re going to look at the power of lightning,” said Potts. This time Cantore can relax. Rather than TWC zapping him just weeks after dropping a car close to his head, “we’re going to spread the love and bring some other talent into this,” Potts said.

LAS VEGAS—“The point of tonight’s press conference is to show that our Unreal Engine is fast enough to enable graphics that are not just real time, but fast enough to be involving, photoreal and immersive in both games and also for high-end entertainment,” said Marc Petit, general manager, Unreal Engine Enterprise at Epic Games.

Marc Petit, general manager, Unreal Engine Enterprise at Epic Games

During the Monday evening event, Petit showed an image rendered in Unreal Engine of the French president’s office used during the French election broadcast.

Ross Video recently released Frontier by The Future Group, a virtual studio graphics rendering platform that uses Unreal Engine to generate lifelike scenery for broadcast shows such as Fremantle’s “Lost In Time.”

“We’re very excited about Frontier,” said Gideon Ferber, director of marketing and product management for Ross Virtual Solutions. “Utilizing Unreal’s superior graphic capabilities in a virtual studio environment while maintaining the ease of use our UX control platform offers is a game-changer in the virtual solution market space.”

“Real-time rendering and compositing to produce final pixels is the holy grail for content producers, and Unreal Engine is the technology that can bring those workflows to life,” Petit said. “It’s helping us bring real-time performance from the gaming world into broadcast, film and commercial entertainment.”

Copyright NAB 2017