Real-time Animation Reference

Thinking of transitioning to Unreal Engine for your animation pipeline. Check out this great reference!

Here are few people to keep an eye on that are building tools and pushing the boundaries of visuals in Unreal:

  1. Praxinos is developing a lot of great Unreal plugins for 2D including EPOS that allows you to Storyboard in Engine. Watch the Unreal Fest demo HERE
  2. E.D. Films does some stunning 2D and 3D stylized looks in Unreal as well as develop tools.
  3. AdvancedSkeleton it’s a rigging system for Maya that can generate a similar Control Rig in Engine
  4. Kitestring are developing high quality deformation tools for RealTime. Watch the Unreal Fest demo HERE

Here are some links with great information about the technology and pipelines at UnrealEngine.com to help get you started:

  1. Check out the Animation section on our website for more content CLICK HERE.
  2. Here are couple great talks from Unreal Fest 2022:
  • Animating in Unreal Engine 5.1 HERE
  • The Future of Animation in UE HERE.
  1. Check out the Epic Developer Community and these key resources to really help jumpstart your real-time pipeline:
  1. If you are looking to build out your visualization pipeline in Unreal check out this guide we put together HERE
  2. Here is a great tutorial about working with Niagara and simulations for linear content HERE
  3. USD is always a hot topic, check out a discussion on integrating USD to UE HERE
  4. Art departments have been using Twinmotion] to quickly create high fidelity 3D visualization CLICK HERE
  5. Check out this new Mesh to MetaHuman feature in action, the possibilities are really amazing! CLICK HERE
  6. Here is a good roundup of some Unreal Resources for Animation CLICK HERE
  7. Unreal released its Live Link Face App which allows anyone to do facial capture with their iPhone. Pretty cool! CLICK HERE
  8. Autodesk updated the Maya Live Link plugin so animators can work in Maya while seeing the fully rendered shot in real-time in Unreal CLICK HERE
  9. For kit bashing, creating environments and characters quickly checkout these resources:
  • Checkout the MetaHuman Creator HERE
  • Checkout MetahumanAnimator HERE
  • Checkout Quixel Megascans HERE
  • Checkout the Unreal Marketplace HERE
  • Checkout Sketchfab HERE
  • Checkout Capturing Reality’s new Reality Capture app. Scan objects with your iPhone HERE

Here are some examples of different studios and styles of animation that have been produced using Unreal.

  1. Disney recently released a special for “Big City Greens” all done in Unreal Engine CLICK HERE
  2. Gnomon just completed this amazing short all in Unreal. CLICK HERE
  3. ReelFX produced a great BTS which walks through their UE pipeline on their new series “Super Giant Robot Brothers” CLICK HERE
  4. Chromosphere wrote a great case study that walks you through their process on their first animated production in Unreal CLICK HERE and a link to the Unreal episode
  5. Nexus created a beautiful teaser with Patrick Osborne called “This Tape Deck is a Time Machine”
  6. The Third Floor recently launched a real-time animation division with this stylized trailer called Skytribe
  7. Aaron Sims Creative pushed photoreal quality in UE5 Early Access with this short called “The Eye: Calanthek"
  8. Bron Animation has gone all real-time and have multiple shows in production CLICK HERE
  9. Dneg jumped into real-time with their short “Mr Spam Gets a New Hat” CLICK HERE
  10. A very cool short and BTS by the talented Sava Zivkovic, the Beckoning and BTS
  11. Mold3D produced an animated teaser called SLAY. It is a great opportunity to get some hands on experience with linear animation file setups. You can download SLAY Sample Project with documentation and Training Videos.
  12. Hair and Fur has been a big priority since 4.26. WETA helped us develop the latest features and produced this great short that shows the type of visual fidelity with fur and feathers that you can achieve in real-time CLICK HERE it truly is amazing!
  13. Zoic Studios has begun re-imagining their pipeline with Unreal with this test battle scene for the DC Series “Stargirl” CLICK HERE
  14. RoosterTeeth is producing several different styles of animation in Engine CLICK HERE
  15. Guild Studios pushed anime style animation on the series PreCure CLICK HERE
  16. Pixomondo produced Star Trek: Short Treks for CBS in Unreal
  1. This short by BlueZoo highlights how an animation studio challenged their team to do a short using the Unreal engine, with no previous experience. They really highlight some of the benefits using Unreal versus a traditional CG pipeline as well the ability to recreate any visual style in engine CLICK HERE
  2. Lucan Studio based in South Africa is producing a 2D animated series that leverages Unreal for all the background, set pieces and some of the effects.CLICK HERE Looks amazing!
  3. In 2018 Digital Dimension did an animated series called Zafari in Unreal CLICK HERE and another show Bayou Buds CLICK HERE. They have since adopted UE for all of their projects.
  4. Here is a great example of a pre-school style show leveraging UE4. It highlights how much you can do with a small team, good creative decisions and Unreal. CLICK HERE. The creator is working on a new show where he is puppeteering in Engine. You can see some of his tests CLICK HERE
  5. The Mill did a piece for Monster.com using puppeteering in Unreal CLICK HERE
  6. For a glimpse at some other ways assets can be repurposed beyond traditional linear content, Psyop produced a live digital billboard and live press junket featuring realtime digital characters CLICK HERE Once your assets are built in Unreal you can use them for so many things.
  7. Here are some links that highlight the many different workflows in Unreal which dramatically change how you direct and collaborate:
  • Collaborating: CLICK HERE
  • Directing: How they did it: Tune in at 38 min: CLICK HERE Finished Piece: CLICK HERE
  • This is a great spotlight on the approach to shooting they took on Welcome to Marwen CLICK HERE
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