This year’s GDC (Game Developers Conference) had Epic Games show some outstanding tech.

Based on the Unreal Engine 4, the Epic/CubicMotion/3Lateral/Vicon/Tencent quintet (yes, Tencent is here as well – they also bought stakes in Ubisoft this week!) presented a demo where we can see a major step forward in creating digital humans. Yes, digital humans and the technology is already available to license for films and games. Siren does look ominously close to a real human being.

60 FPS, real-time facial animation by Cubic Motion (who could track more than 200 facial features with 90 FPS), body animation by Vicon, and the facial rigging technology was provided by 3Lateral. Cubic Motion allows a live actor to perform within the entertainment and game world in real-time – it could be used in eSport, and in films, too. The production would also see a significant increase in speed, as well as a decrease in costs. The prediction is that by 2024, we might regularly interact with digital humans.

Epic also made a digital version of Andy Serkis (Planet of the Apes, Lord of the Rings). VentureBeat showed two images of the result. There are two videos, too:

Epic also presented new tech with real-time ray tracing, featuring Star Wars. (Hmmm…) In it, Epic teamed up with Nvidia and Disney’s ILMxLAB special effects studio. Epic thinks that Unreal Engine, as well as other game engines, could be used for creating films, who utilize the real-time ray tracing.

Unreal Engine might be doing some outstanding stuff in the future. Are we hopeful?

Source: VentureBeat, VentureBeat, VentureBeat