13. Januar 2020

Discover Pixel Streaming: real-time distributed content for any device

Pixel Streaming

Architecture

Automotive & Transportation

Product Design

Design

Features

Simulation

Visualization

Tech Blog

Automotive configurators, real-time collaboration, and customer engagement are just a few of the uses for interactive real-time content. But what if you want users to be able to interact on a smartphone, tablet, kiosk, PC, or any device at all? Until recently, distribution solutions relied on the hardware at the receiving end, with quality inherently limited by the device’s display capabilities, disk space, and download times. This also meant that if you wanted the highest quality for each device type, you needed to make multiple versions of your project to accommodate them.

The Unreal Engine team at Epic Games set out to break these distribution bottlenecks with Pixel Streaming, which keeps the experience at the host’s end and streams content to any device with the highest possible quality.

In our new white paper, Streaming Unreal Engine content to multiple platforms, we compare client-side solutions WebGL and HTML5 with host-side Pixel Streaming, and explain our rationale for developing an entirely new technology. We also explore a variety of setups and use cases for Pixel Streaming.

The Experience Age

In the Experience Age, consumers want more than information—they want to see, feel, and connect. An interactive real-time experience can deliver this, and more, to end users.

Unreal Engine (UE4), with its roots in game development, has all the tools you need to create such an experience, whether it’s a configurator for a new car, a collaborative design for a new building, or a tour of your latest product. But with consumers using any and all types of devices to consume this content, distributing a UE4 experience to these devices while retaining fidelity and speed has been a challenge.

This is why Epic developed Pixel Streaming, an out-of-the-box solution for distributing UE4 content that can retain the look, feel, and branding of the experience you want your customers to have.

Anatomy of Pixel Streaming

Pixel Streaming works via a plugin for UE4. The Unreal Engine project stays on a host, often in the cloud, and user requests for access are processed via API.

Unlike other solutions we explored, Pixel Streaming requires no special processing of the UE4 graphic elements and no downloads by the user. By keeping the project on the host and streaming only pixels to display devices, Pixel Streaming is faster than download-based solutions and also more secure—the display device never stores the project data.

Setup for configurators or remote collaborative design. Key: 1. Unreal Engine development 2. UE4 server apps with Web RTC in cloud 3. STUN/TURN server 4. User displays / interaction

Another benefit of Pixel Streaming is that the same UE4 project can stream to any device, no matter its resolution or display capabilities. This eliminates the need to create multiple versions of the project to satisfy all device types.

The paper states, “The goal is to maintain the highest quality and capability in the experience for non-games applications of Unreal Engine.” With Pixel Streaming, we aim to show you just how.

Download the white paper Streaming Unreal Engine content to multiple platforms, and start creating irresistible, interactive content for your customers today!