4 ms·

Given how quickly Unreal has taken the (already taxed) VFX space by storm, they are desperately trying to catch up.

CyberDildonics 3y ago
Where has unreal take vfx by storm? If you are talking about the live on set screens, that is a very tiny and exotic use case.
- all2 3y ago
  Search YouTube for "Unreal" film previews. There are so many out there that were all realized with the Unreal engine. Maybe it's the algorithm, but all I see is stuff done in Unreal and I haven't seen anything done in Unity.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    I searched for that and 'unreal engine film preview'. There were a few cinematics that have been made, but there was nothing that had to do with major vfx studios or even upcoming mainstream films.
- georgeecollins 3y ago
  I tried to find data but couldn't quickly, so maybe someone else can find a comparison study. So instead, fwiw, anecdote: I work for a film production company and we ingest assets all the time from high end VFX houses. It's always from Unreal / used in Unreal in my experience. That's in LA/ Hollywood and high end productions. For all I know they use a lot of Unity in Bollywood or Europe.
- Kyrio 3y ago
  Not to mention most of those use ILM Stagecraft which, despite being Unreal-based in its first version, has been using a custom engine for some time now.
  - ryanlitalien 3y ago
    Do you have source? From what I heard last, they're using a heavily modified version of Unreal.
    - bhouston 3y ago
      I heard as well that they moved away to custom software.
    - pfranz 3y ago
      Here's a HN thread asking the same question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169143 Anecdotally, I've heard the same thing. Lots of articles will say things like, "ILM increased the resolution of StageCraft with its in-house renderer, Helios" but never explicitly say they dropped Unreal or exactly what changed.
- kelsolaar 3y ago
  Unreal is used by all the major VFX vendors whether it be for virtual production, previz or final frame rendering.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    Where are you getting this information? Not only have I never heard of this, "the major VFX vendors" don't really do 'virtual production' or previz, with the exception of the ILM stagecraft stuff. I haven't heard of anyone using unreal for final frame rendering in film.
    - berkut 3y ago
      I think they're overselling it, but Unreal is fairly heavily being used in the early parts of pipelines at various studios, certainly more than Unity engine itself... i.e. MPC had significant use of Unreal on set for mocap, Framestore has Unreal setup for previs and mocap (they hired some ex-games devs with Unreal experience to work on it) ILM stagecraft is the 'hero' example (and as mentioned, they've got Helios now), but various studios are experimenting with it in various departments. Disclaimer: I work for Weta, and above doesn't reflect anything about Weta (Gazebo, etc), it's all from friends/ex-colleagues at other studios...
      - kaveh808 3y ago
        I worked on Gazebo in its early days.
  - totetsu 3y ago
    I always found the King Kong did extras very educational. There was a lot about previz https://youtu.be/GhOVR8DTULc https://youtu.be/GhOVR8DTULc
  - infintropy 3y ago
    charitably asserting that you are right in the sense that it can be found. I'm a vfx compositor turned devops crossover. The tooling at this point is decades old, in concept. There are many "reimagining"s of vfx pipelines with Unreal at its core, but even these pipes have flame/nuke/fusion somewhere downstream. Even smaller than the unreal operators is the pool of users that are purists enough to try and keep it all in-box. Maya, Nuke, Houdini. These are the kings of the vfx world you were looking for if youre talking in the tens of thousands of artists out there, using pipelines that are conceptually 20 years in the making in some parts. The switch from Shake to Nuke was ~15 years ago and theres _still_ nothing good enough to replace it. Foundry scrapes as much money from us as possible because its a good product. Unreal is amazing. Our shop is wrapping a project using it as the lighting pipeline, delivering to a Nuke team. Unreal is not the everytool.
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  Some animation studios use Unreal. Watching the credits of some anime, I sometimes see credits for "Unreal Engine Developers"

Where has unreal take vfx by storm? If you are talking about the live on set screens, that is a very tiny and exotic use case.

all2 3y ago
Search YouTube for "Unreal" film previews. There are so many out there that were all realized with the Unreal engine. Maybe it's the algorithm, but all I see is stuff done in Unreal and I haven't seen anything done in Unity.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  I searched for that and 'unreal engine film preview'. There were a few cinematics that have been made, but there was nothing that had to do with major vfx studios or even upcoming mainstream films.
georgeecollins 3y ago
I tried to find data but couldn't quickly, so maybe someone else can find a comparison study. So instead, fwiw, anecdote: I work for a film production company and we ingest assets all the time from high end VFX houses. It's always from Unreal / used in Unreal in my experience. That's in LA/ Hollywood and high end productions. For all I know they use a lot of Unity in Bollywood or Europe.
Kyrio 3y ago
Not to mention most of those use ILM Stagecraft which, despite being Unreal-based in its first version, has been using a custom engine for some time now.
- ryanlitalien 3y ago
  Do you have source? From what I heard last, they're using a heavily modified version of Unreal.
  - bhouston 3y ago
    I heard as well that they moved away to custom software.
  - pfranz 3y ago
    Here's a HN thread asking the same question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169143 Anecdotally, I've heard the same thing. Lots of articles will say things like, "ILM increased the resolution of StageCraft with its in-house renderer, Helios" but never explicitly say they dropped Unreal or exactly what changed.
kelsolaar 3y ago
Unreal is used by all the major VFX vendors whether it be for virtual production, previz or final frame rendering.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  Where are you getting this information? Not only have I never heard of this, "the major VFX vendors" don't really do 'virtual production' or previz, with the exception of the ILM stagecraft stuff. I haven't heard of anyone using unreal for final frame rendering in film.
  - berkut 3y ago
    I think they're overselling it, but Unreal is fairly heavily being used in the early parts of pipelines at various studios, certainly more than Unity engine itself... i.e. MPC had significant use of Unreal on set for mocap, Framestore has Unreal setup for previs and mocap (they hired some ex-games devs with Unreal experience to work on it) ILM stagecraft is the 'hero' example (and as mentioned, they've got Helios now), but various studios are experimenting with it in various departments. Disclaimer: I work for Weta, and above doesn't reflect anything about Weta (Gazebo, etc), it's all from friends/ex-colleagues at other studios...
    - kaveh808 3y ago
      I worked on Gazebo in its early days.
- totetsu 3y ago
  I always found the King Kong did extras very educational. There was a lot about previz https://youtu.be/GhOVR8DTULc https://youtu.be/GhOVR8DTULc
- infintropy 3y ago
  charitably asserting that you are right in the sense that it can be found. I'm a vfx compositor turned devops crossover. The tooling at this point is decades old, in concept. There are many "reimagining"s of vfx pipelines with Unreal at its core, but even these pipes have flame/nuke/fusion somewhere downstream. Even smaller than the unreal operators is the pool of users that are purists enough to try and keep it all in-box. Maya, Nuke, Houdini. These are the kings of the vfx world you were looking for if youre talking in the tens of thousands of artists out there, using pipelines that are conceptually 20 years in the making in some parts. The switch from Shake to Nuke was ~15 years ago and theres _still_ nothing good enough to replace it. Foundry scrapes as much money from us as possible because its a good product. Unreal is amazing. Our shop is wrapping a project using it as the lighting pipeline, delivering to a Nuke team. Unreal is not the everytool.
shortrounddev2 3y ago
Some animation studios use Unreal. Watching the credits of some anime, I sometimes see credits for "Unreal Engine Developers"