Brand new character creation software has been revealed by Unreal Engine maker digital games marketplace Epic Games Store, but the studio is also known for creating and licensing out the Unreal Engine, which has been used to develop a large number of large and small games at dozens of studios over the past 20 years.
From shooters such as Epic Games’ own Fortnite to fighting games such as the recently unveiled King of Fighters XV, the number and range of titles that utilize the Unreal Engine is incredibly vast. And Epic Games is still pushing its Unreal Engine even further, especially for the new consoles, as it showed off the latest version of the technology last year during an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo for PlayStation 5, showing off not only some of the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5, but also a glimpse of the potential power of Sony’s new console.
Epic Games released a sneak peek of its new MetaHuman Creator on the Unreal Engine website and detailed what its new technology is capable of doing. According to Epic Games, the main selling point of its new app is its potential to significantly shorten the time it takes to create digital humans, “from weeks or months to less than an hour.” s are able to select a number of preset options from the cloud-streamed app’s online library of human appearance and motion that can then be adjusted by the to their liking.
Epic has also revealed that the app’s library currently features 30 different hairstyles that utilize the Unreal Engine’s strand-based or card-based hair, 18 differently proportioned body types, and even preset clothing options to choose from. Digital humans created in the MetaHuman Creator will be fully rigged and ready for animation and motion capture in the Unreal Engine and its source code can also be ed for use in Maya. Additionally, the animations made for one MetaHuman creation will also be usable for other MetaHumans, further easing the workflow when creating digital humans.
From the onset, the new technology already looks impressive and its effects on both the video game development and 3D animation industries could be massive. Being able to design and create digital humans much faster than before will make production workflows significantly more efficient. It will likely be exciting to see how video game developers and 3D animation studios make use of Epic Games’ MetaHuman Creator once the technology is made available, and it could further solidify Epic Games' position as the most popular gaming brand in the world.
Source: Epic Games
