Unreal Engine, developed by Epic Games, is renowned for its prowess in game development. However, its capabilities extend far beyond gaming, mainly toward animation.
This article explores Unreal Engine as a robust suite of tools for animation, delving into its features, advantages, challenges, and real-world case studies.
First, A Brief Overview
Unreal Engine is a cutting-edge game development platform celebrated for its high-fidelity graphics, real-time rendering, and user-friendly interface. It’s been used to develop a lot of games, including Fortnite, Hellblade, and Mass Effect.
Initially designed for game developers in 1998, it has now evolved into a versatile toolset embraced by various industries, including film, architecture, and virtual production.
Unreal Engine’s adaptability extends to animation production, empowering creators to craft dynamic and visually stunning sequences. Its capabilities now make it a compelling choice for animators seeking a powerful and versatile tool.
Unreal Engine Features for Animation
Unreal Engine’s animation capabilities are underpinned by a range of features that cater to both 2D and 3D animation. Understanding these features is essential for harnessing the engine’s full potential in animation creation.
Feature 1: Superior Cinematic Tools
Unreal Engine offers an array of cinematic tools designed to elevate animation production. These tools include advanced camera systems, depth-of-field effects, and post-processing options, providing animators with the means to create visually compelling cinematic sequences.
These tools empower animators to create scenes with a level of detail and nuance that was once reserved for high-budget productions. Not convinced? Take a look at “Rebirth” below!
Feature 2: Sequencer
Let’s start with the first cinematic tool you see in Unreal Engine. Sequencer is a timeline-based tool for creating and managing complex animations. It basically looks like the timeline in conventional video editors, but it allows for many more controls.
Animators can use it to orchestrate various elements, including cameras, characters, and special effects, in a synchronized manner. It should all amount to cohesive, visually engaging sequences in the end!
Feature 3: Animation Blueprints
Animation Blueprints in Unreal Engine is a visual scripting system that allows animators to define and control character animations with a primarily node-based interface. It’s an intuitive tool that provides great control over character movements.
In gaming, this tool can used for 1) cinematics and 2) dynamic animations that respond to player input. The first usage is efficient in animated productions as well because:
- Everything is highly organized in separate windows and
- They’re very customizable. You can make custom animation graphs to control the behavior of your characters and objects with laser precision.
Feature 4: Persona
This is a character animation tool that allows you to create and edit animations for each character.
With Persona, you can animate various character types, from humanoids to quadrupeds. (These are all natively supported.) You can also use Persona to retarget animations from one character to another, even if they have different proportions or skeletons.
Feature 5: Animation Graph
Unreal Engine’s Animation Graph is a system of tools that allows animators to create complex and realistic animations for each persona and environment. The Animation Graph tool lets animators define the logic and flow of animation states, transitions, blends, and layers using a node-based interface. In other words, Animation Blueprints provides magnified, object-to-object precision, while Animation Graph gives you a holistic view.
Animators can also use the Animation Graph tool to create custom animation nodes using Blueprint scripting or C++ code, enabling them to implement custom logic and functionality for their animations.
The Animation Graph tool supports keyframe animation, motion capture data, and procedural animation techniques such as inverse kinematics, physics simulation, and facial animation. And, of course, everything is integrated seamlessly with everything.
Feature 6: Physics Asset Editor
While nodes and a simple bone structure are great for most animated movements, they’re hardly enough for final animations! Here’s where the Physics Asset Editor comes into play. Its primary function is to add physical shapes to your bare structures, from simple squares to fully-fledged humanoid muscles.
This tool also allows you to add joint constraints and realistic physics simulations for each persona. Both of these are important for making your animations even more realistic.
Plus, make sure to check each persona’s constraints, especially if you retarget animations from one to another with different bone structures.
Feature 7: Blend Spaces
With Blend Spaces, you can create smooth transitions between separate animations or poses, such as walking and running. You can also use Blend Spaces to create complex animations that respond to player input.
A Blend Space asset contains a graph plotting animations or poses as samples. The input values can be controlled by gameplay (or, in our case, animation) logic, such as the character’s speed or direction, or by other variables, such as the character’s mood or health.
Blend Spaces are vital because they allow for blending arrangements without having to create individual nodes for each condition or property. This results in realistic and responsive character movements, such as locomotion, aiming, facial expressions, and more.
Depending on the number of input values used, there are two types of Blend Spaces: 1D and 2D. A 1D Blend Space uses a single input value to blend between two or more animations along a horizontal axis. A 2D Blend Space uses two input values to blend between four or more animations in a two-dimensional space.
Advantages of Using Unreal Engine for Animation
This article doesn’t cover all the features in depth, but you can rest assured that the engine will offer you a comprehensive, robust, and together set of capabilities. (This is thanks to the fact that it’s designed with video games in mind, which are naturally more intricate than animations.)
That said, you should know that the benefits extend beyond the feature set. In this section, we’ll cover other advantages, highlighting why animators may (or should) choose Unreal Engine as their preferred tool for their projects.
High-Quality Graphics
With its track record in video games, Unreal Engine has earned quite a reputation for delivering stunning graphics quality. Its advanced physically-based rendering (PBR) materials and lighting system accurately replicate real-world surface properties, such as metal, wood, or fabric.
Also, keep in mind that using physically-based material is highly optional. So, you can rest easy whether you’re looking for lifelike or fantasy aesthetics. Unreal Engine has always been celebrated for its visuals and thankfully, it keeps improving.
Real-time Rendering
This is the main reason we use Unreal Engine for our productions at Picotion! It’s a game-changer for animators because it means any feedback can be swiftly taken into account, adjusted for, and visualized instantly.
Real-time rendering enhances interactivity and fosters an iterative approach that significantly enhances the overall animation workflow, especially during the production phase. Long story short, you can save much time and effort!
Collaboration and Integration
Collaboration is a cornerstone of successful animation projects, and Unreal Engine provides powerful tools to facilitate teamwork. For one thing, it offers robust project sharing and version control. As we mentioned, it’s designed for video games, so it covers many of the needs of an animation studio by default.
As a plus, the software is compatible with various software, inputs, and pipelines, ensuring a seamless workflow for animators. So, you can use various industry-standard software like Blender, Maya, ZBrush, etc., to achieve your specific requirements and then input all of that data into Unreal Engine. It also supports mocap data, as we’ve already mentioned.
Cost-Effectiveness
Unreal Engine’s standard license is free for many cases, including small projects and learning purposes. Royalties may apply for commercial projects that include the software’s code. You can find the specifics in their FAQ.
However, you might need to get in touch with Epic Games for a custom license. You can expect reasonable prices depending on your revenue projections and the fact that they don’t charge loyalties for the first $1M gross lifetime revenue for game projects made with the free license.
Cross-Platform Compatibility
You can install and use Unreal Engine on Windows, MacOS, and Linux devices. Once your project is finished, you can use the same animation assets for every platform your target audience uses but adjust the level of detail, compression, and optimization to suit each platform’s performance and storage requirements.
This way, you can ensure that your animations look smooth and realistic on any device without compromising the quality or the file size.
Challenges and Considerations
While Unreal Engine offers myriad benefits for animation, it’s essential to address two potential challenges that animators may encounter when adopting the platform.
Steep Learning Curve
Unreal Engine’s robust feature set may pose a learning curve for transitioning animators. While some features like the sequencer are far from alien, many controls and where to find them might be perplexing for some.
The engine is ultimately user-friendly, as tricky as it might appear at first glance. It also has extensive, illustrated documentation that makes it accessible to animations with varying levels of experience.
Resource Intensiveness
Video games are always extremely complex to produce. (Think of how a humble game like Tetris has been beaten for the first time 34 years after its release!) It makes sense for Unreal Engine, a prominent game engine, to be resource-intensive. It runs on mid-level systems, but you need much more memory, processing power, and disk space to make it render smoothly and efficiently.
While many animation studios are already equipped with great hardware, these system requirements can still be a challenge for animators who work with limited hardware or budget constraints. Be sure to check all of the requirements before you commit!
Case Studies: 3 Successful Animation Projects in Unreal Engine
Before we wrap up the article, let’s see three real-world examples of where Unreal Engine has proved efficient in animation production.
Morgan Lives in a Rocket House
We love this cute YouTube show! Here’s how it’s described on their website:
“MORGAN LIVES IN A ROCKET HOUSE is an animated preschool show about Morgan, a kid marooned on an alien planet light years from Earth. It follows the adventures of Morgan and his best friends, Elliot and Synth, as they play and have fun in the happy little village Morgan’s ship crashed into many years ago.”
The show has lighthearted stories, bright colors, smooth animations, expressive characters, and more! Head over to Morgan Lives in a Rocket House to watch.
Prazinburk Ridge
This one is a short movie that will have you stunned and watching until the end. Here’s the producers’ description:
“In World War One, a former rugby player for Great Britain must rely on his old skills to save himself and his fellow soldiers from shot, shell, and poison gas. Animated action/drama based on a true story.”
Its graphics would instantly remind you of old video games, but remember that in its production team of only seven people, only one worked on the visuals. Plus, the production essentially took eight months. That’s quite the achievement! Head over to Yes, Commissioner? to watch it.
Bunny Brothers: Tales of the Old Castle
We have several works made using Unreal Engine, but Bunny Brothers is one of our IPs. Here’s how we describe it in a flash:
“Bunny Brothers: Tales of the Old Castle is a family cartoon about the life and adventures of rabbit brothers in a mystical castle.”
We’ll leave you with the whimsical visuals and fun stories, and we won’t flatter ourselves any longer! Here are Tales of the Old Castle’s YouTube, where you can watch the whole series and Bunny Brothers’ product page if you need more information.
Conclusion
Yes, Unreal Engine is good for animation. The powerful tools it offers collectively give animators a high level of control, allowing them to craft dynamic and visually stunning sequences. Real-time rendering, high-quality graphics, collaboration and integration capabilities, cost-effectiveness, and cross-platform compatibility further contribute to Unreal Engine’s appeal for animators.
You should also be mindful of two downsides. Depending on your team’s experience level, the engine could present you with a steep learning curve. Plus, rendering animation with it requires more resources than simply running it. Epic Games provides comprehensive documentation for the first downside.
If you’ve watched the case studies at the end of the article and you’re not convinced that the sky is the limit in quality, be sure to take a look at Quixel’s YouTube and have your mind blown.
We could give you a quote, too! Reach out, and we’ll be in touch.
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