29. August 2018

Shotgun integration now available in Unreal Engine 4.20

Shotgun

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Film & Television

Von Ryan Mayeda

As modern productions continue to grow in scope and complexity, so too has the need for an efficient artist workflow that enables the team to get the project done. It’s become more important than ever to minimize the time artists spend hunting for information and performing repetitive tasks manually so they can focus on their creative work. Building workflows based on pipeline intelligence relies on close collaboration between artist tools and production systems.

With the release of Unreal Engine 4.20, we are taking big steps to drive real-time pipeline development forward and are excited to announce the availability of a full integration with Shotgun, one of the leading production tracking, review, and asset management systems in the industry. Unreal Engine is the first game engine supported in Shotgun’s Toolkit platform, a suite of integrations with multiple DCC applications and a vast ecosystem of useful pipeline tools.

This integration streamlines the connection Unreal Engine has with both upstream 3D asset data created by artists in other applications like Maya, and downstream image data that needs to be reviewed by supervisors and directors in Shotgun. Our goal is to make it easier than ever to leverage Unreal Engine’s advanced real-time capabilities in a seamless artist workflow.

“Shotgun is used by lots of major film studios and VFX companies, and integration in-engine is a huge asset for our customers in media and entertainment. You can assign a task in Shotgun and attach it to an Unreal Engine asset so that the engine, content and associated data are all interconnected and speaking to one another, ensuring that artists and supervisors alike are aligned on the latest version of a shot in review,” said Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri.

“Unreal Engine integration is a feature that our clients have been asking about for some time. The real-time workflows that Unreal offers opens up new and extremely interesting opportunities in media production. We are really excited about the Shotgun integration in Unreal 4.20, and look forward to seeing the Shotgun community starting to adopt it,” said Manne Ohrstrom, Autodesk’s Technical Lead on Shotgun Toolkit.

The extended Python API in Unreal Engine 4.20 enables deeper and richer pipeline development capabilities as well as support for PySide user interfaces like the ones in Shotgun’s Toolkit platform. The integration supports:

Shotgun Panel: Quickly locate project information within Shotgun without leaving the Unreal Engine interface.

Loader: Easily import asset data created by other artists in Unreal Engine and neatly organize it in the Content Browser based on Shotgun information.

Unreal Publisher: Share asset files in Shotgun directly from Unreal Engine and complete renders from Sequencer for instant feedback in Shotgun.

Maya Publisher: Export an asset as FBX data for import in Unreal Engine with the Loader and automatically render a turntable of that asset with Unreal Engine, from Maya, for review in Shotgun.

The new plugin is available today in the latest Unreal Engine 4.20 release and can be easily configured within Shotgun Toolkit.