i3 - July/August 2017 - 16

pic Games' latest Unreal Engine technology has been powering games for decades
- its newest is used by Microsoft's Gears of
War 4 and Capcom's Street Fighter V. Now
the game studio has launched an internal
Unreal Engine enterprise business solely
focused on how gaming technology can be used
in new ways.
Real-time 3D is changing how all types of
industries are doing business, while also saving
time and money. Hasbro used the technology to
bring "Mr. Monopoly" to life and interact with
attendees at a Live Facebook press conference.
Rival Mattel used Unreal to connect with tween
girls through a series of Barbie vlogs (video logs)
that positioned an animated version of the doll
as a modern day girl.
From bringing toys to life to inspiring future
scientists, Framestore Studio used Unreal for a
project at the 2016 USA Science and Engineering
Festival in Washington, DC. Working with aerospace specialist Lockheed
Martin and creative agency McCann, the developer turned a real yellow
school bus into a traveling Field Trip to Mars without using virtual reality
headsets. As students looked out the windows of the bus driving through the
streets of DC, they saw a detailed recreation of 200 square miles of Mars.
Even NASA got into the Unreal engine, partnering with Fusion to create
a separate Mars 2030 VR Experience that recreates an eight square kilometer
section of the planet, allowing users to feel like they are standing on the distant
planet when they put on a headset.
But the first wave of companies to fully embrace real-time 3D rendering
emerged from the auto industry. Epic Games is working with McLaren, Chevrolet,
Jaguar, BMW and Toyota across a number of different technology initiatives.
McLaren's partnership with Epic began in 2015 as the high-end British
carmaker captured data from all of its cars, including paint samples, material samples of fabric and audio recordings of engine noise to produce a
Custom Configurator using Unreal Engine 4. The configurator is currently
working with the McLaren 650S, a sports car that starts at $265,000. Using
a PC or mobile device, customers can pick every
detail of their car and build it virtually - listening to the rev of the engine and viewing how the
color schemes mesh.
McLaren design manager Mark Roberts says
the company is creating a range of new virtual
tools in the visualization field with Epic Games.
These new VR tools will revolutionize how the
automaker does things, starting with design and
going right through to the customer who can customize their car in the engine. While Epic continues to push technology with McLaren, the game
maker's enterprise division began working with
Chevrolet in 2016. Epic showcased the fruit of that
collaboration at the Game Developers Conference
in February 2017.

From top:
Microsoft's
Gears of War 4.
The McLaren
650S. Mars
2030 VR
Experience trip
to Mars without
using virtual
reality headsets.

Augmented
vehicle rendering using The
Mill's Blackbird.

working with The Mill ad agency since
2013 to film new cars incognito. The
C7 Corvette was the first vehicle to
undergo this process, where the agency
would film the older C6 Corvette on
the open road. And then in post-production the C7 would be added virtually through computer-generated
imagery, allowing the company to keep
the look of the new vehicle under
wraps until the official reveal.
As things evolved, The Mill
designed a special vehicle called the
Blackbird that's equipped with four
Red Epic 360 video cameras at its
center and a spinning LiDAR scanner
to capture the surrounding environment and the correct data for lighting
and reflections through a partner
company called Arraiy. This means
that the generic-looking frame of
a vehicle can become a shape-shifter.
It can be augmented into any vehicle
the agency wants. Before Epic became
involved, this "morphing" occurred in
post-production. But Vince Baertsoen,
the head of R&D at The Mill, asked
Kim Libreri, CTO of Epic Games, if
it'd be possible to use Unreal Engine
4 to show the director the augmented
vehicle in real-time during the filming
of a commercial shoot.
So The Mill shot a commercial featuring a 2017 Camaro ZL1 in a race
against the Chevy FNR concept car,
except neither car ever hit the asphalt
in Southern California. The Blackbird

AUGMENTED RACING

Sam Russell, general director of global marketing
for Chevrolet, says the automaker had been

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i3 - July/August 2017

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