Welcome to The Future of Animation, a celebration packed with real-time techniques, insider stories, case studies, a brand-new Animation Field Guide, and highlights from the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
Real-time animation pipelines are here
Greetings from the field! We've interviewed animation teams from all over the world and one thing’s for certain, the use of real-time workflows in animation is exploding! And it’s no surprise. Instant feedback can make the whole pipeline feel new, especially when different departments are constantly moving as one.
Animation Field Guide
Want the lowdown on real-time workflows for animation? In this guide, you’ll get a tour of real-time pipelines in use today, and find out how they eliminate traditional pain points.
Find out how Sony Pictures Imageworks took a leap and changed a pipeline that’s been working for over 25 years to deliver real-time animation for the latest season of Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots.
Learn how Untold Studios developed a cloud-based pipeline in Unreal Engine to render an animated short in real time—without any high-spec computer needed—for their upcoming film, Malanca.
Unreal Engine supercharged the creative process and improved both quality and sustainability during the production of La Cabane’s charming animated children’s show. Take a look!
MetaHuman technology brings a 10,000-year-old shaman back to life
Discover how archaeologists created an interactive digital model of the 10,000-year-old face of a prehistoric shaman from the Lepenski Vir settlement in Serbia using MetaHuman technology.
Go behind-the-scenes with cloud-native studio Preymaker and find out how they produced sci-fi short Blue—without any of the animation team ever setting foot in the same room.
Discover how Impossible Objects combined hybrid virtual production, live action, and full in-engine visualization on the commercial for the new mobile Diablo game.
Go behind the scenes on the Netflix animated series Super Giant Robot Brothers!, produced by Reel FX, and learn how virtual production in Unreal Engine transformed every phase of the filmmaking process.
Explore how Chromosphere switched from a traditional pipeline to an Unreal Engine workflow for animated web series Yuki 7, unlocking real-time collaboration, fast iterations, and automated VFX.
Take a look at how Engine House created animated short Wylder in less than three months with a small team while working from home, rendering the film entirely as final pixels in Unreal Engine.
Image courtesy of DNEG Animation and Howdybot Productions
Spotlight: Mr. Spam Gets a New Hat
When DNEG Animation set out to bring William Joyce’s Mr. Spam Gets a New Hat to the screen as a short film, they put Unreal Engine through its paces in a real-time pipeline.
In this week’s Inside Unreal, we’ll dive into the adrenaline-inducing hack-and-slash game ENENRA 2! Between breathtaking environments, stunning effects, and mind-bending time manipulation abilities, there’s lots to learn about starting a high-quality project on your own. We’ll also explore how to make impactful cinematics and repurpose animations from the Marketplace.
Find out how three filmmakers used Unreal Engine to create three very different animated shorts featured in Short Nite, Fortnite’s in-game film festival.
Left: Mall Stories is a Chromosphere Production | Center: Image courtesy of Chris Perry | Right: Image courtesy of Emre Okten
Image courtesy of Capacity Studios
Spotlight: Rocket League Hype Chamber
Discover how Psyonix was able to manage the increasing complexity of Rocket League Championship Series broadcasts by switching to a real-time approach for motion graphics and animations.
Want to learn how to animate characters with Unreal Engine? Take a tour of our animation training in the Epic Developer Community, and check out our webinars and documentation on the latest animation features.
Watch a conversation with some of the most exciting storytellers in animation and get a sneak peek at how they’re building Unreal Engine into their projects.
Then check out our animation hub. You can review feature sets, get inspired by recent projects, and access free resources like white papers and self-paced learning videos. You can also download Unreal Engine—it’s free to use for creating linear content! It’s a good scene.