The Future of Animation starts now!
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.
Monday, June 27
Spotlight: In Vaulted Halls Entombed
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.
Love, Death + Robots | Courtesy of Netflix
Tuesday, June 28
Animation plugins
Looking for new features and functionality for your Unreal Engine animation pipeline? Check out the latest animation plugins from Epic partners.
Image courtesy of Passion Pictures
Image courtesy of Untold Studios
Spotlight: Malanca
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.Spotlight: Mush-Mush & the Mushables
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!
Mush-Mush & the Mushables © 2022 – La Cabane Productions – Thuristar – Cake Entertainment – VRT-Ketnet – RTBF Télévision belge
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.Wednesday, June 29
Image courtesy of Preymaker LLC
Spotlight: Blue
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.Spotlight: Battle at Home Screen
Discover how Impossible Objects combined hybrid virtual production, live action, and full in-engine visualization on the commercial for the new mobile Diablo game.
Image courtesy of Impossible Objects
Thursday, June 30
Super Giant Robot Brothers
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.Super Giant Robot Brothers / Courtesy of Netflix
Yuki 7 is a Chromosphere production
Spotlight: Yuki 7
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.Spotlight: Wylder
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 Engine House Films
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.Inside Unreal: The Creation & Animation of ENENRA
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.Friday, July 1
Spotlight: Short Nite stories
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.Spotlight: The Matrix Awakens BTS
Watch these videos to dive into the making of the reality-bending Unreal Engine 5 tech demo The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience.
Real-time character animation training
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.Highlights from Annecy
Couldn’t make it to France for the Annecy International Animated Film Festival this year? Catch up on highlights from the event in this video.
Annecy Panel: Animating in Unreal Engine
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.Want to start today?
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.
Image courtesy of Engine House Films