Epic Games has some good news for developers working with Unreal Engine. Your projects using the already stunning development engine are about to get a lot prettier with the introduction of a new library of assets. Epic has acquired Photogrammetry firm Quixel, and will be helping support the company into the future. Quixel was founded in 2011 and has been working to build out its rather impressive library since then. The overall total volume of assets currently sits around 10,000 individual scans. And rather interestingly, it includes far more than beautiful vistas and recreations of existent buildings. The library includes everything from animal fur renders, to mountains trees and so much more.
Photogrammetry is the process of using real-world locales and landmarks to craft 3D scans of these things for use in various digital effects and related projects. The resulting assets can be used in all kinds of projects, animations, gaming and even films have all used the technology to create photorealistic effects in their work. And yes, Epic uses this tech. In fact Epic and Quixel have worked together before, which likely led to this acquisition.
What Does the Future Hold?
The changes made are pretty substantial, and will completely change the way developers and other creatos use these wonderful assets going into 2020 and beyond. With this new acquisition, Epic Games will be opening up the entire library of Megascans to their users in new ways. For one thing, the price of existing Megascan assets will be cut in half. This means that teams will be able to get more bang for their buck, and yes, this includes subscription plans too.
Other changes being made include the opening up of new versions of Bridge and Mixer – the modeling tools Quixel uses to implement and alter their assets – to be completely free. Starting in 2020, both of these tools will be totally free for anyone.
Quixel released another tool for Unreal Engine called Rebirth. The aim of this technology was to give creators using Unreal access to the library of digital recreations, called Megascans . The project was launched in March of this year, and has really allowed Unreal devs to improve the quality of their work. You can see the effect in action in the trailer for the addon below.
What do you think about this change? Do you think Epic is throwing too much money around? Do you think the democratization of assets is helpful? A lot of gamers seem to still be angry over the Epic Games Store’s myriad problems, let us know what you think.
