It’s been a big year for real-time technology in the media and entertainment industry. We’ve seen game engines used in everything from the production of high-profile films like Dune: Part Two to augmented reality visuals for live events such as Coachella.
With 2024 nearly done, now’s a great time for a look back at some of our media and entertainment highlights from the year.
Inside Unreal livestream: The Year in Review
The end of the year is upon us—and that means it’s time for the annual 'Year in Review' episode on Inside Unreal. Join us along with our special guests as we take a look at this year’s highlights from the Epic team and the incredible Unreal Engine community.Academy Award®-winning animated short War Is Over! makes Unreal Engine history
Animating in Unreal Engine | Tips and Tricks
Check out this playlist of tips and tricks for animating in Unreal Engine. You’ll find eight easy steps that will have you on the road to animating like a pro in no time.Unreal Engine streamlines desert production on Dune: Part Two
Coachella
At the 2024 festival, Coachella's Innovation team used Unreal Engine across numerous festival touchpoints including marketing videos, on-site activations, AR livestream visuals, and for the very first time, live LED visuals on the Quasar stage.The team also expanded the festival's presence in Fortnite with two new Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) islands and a third consecutive year of original cosmetics.
Watch the video for a look at the Coachella Canvas—a new view of the festival seen through immersive experiences, games, art, and creative technology.
Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust
Student Showcase 2024 | Unreal Engine, MetaHuman, and More
Watch this video for a glimpse at some of the stunning work produced by our talented community of students in 2024. Using everything from Unreal Engine and MetaHuman to RealityCapture and Quixel Megascans, these projects showcase what’s possible with a little imagination and the Epic ecosystem.If you’d like to find out more about using Unreal Engine as a student or a school, take a look here.
Magnopus brings Amazon’s Fallout series to life with virtual production powered by Unreal Engine
Moment Factory redefines live concerts with real-time visuals for Phish at Sphere
Explore how adopting a video game approach made it possible to deliver immersive visuals that could follow Phish’s virtuoso musical improv in real time for four musically and visually unique shows at Sphere.Dimension Studio sees more directors turn to virtual production
Story Development with Virtual Production in Unreal Engine
This video course will take you on a deep dive into Unreal Engine virtual production workflows for story design, including the use of live mocap, virtual cameras, editing the timeline, adding sound and adjusting lighting, and more.Discover how UE can help you get to your best ideas faster, with quick concept exploration and iteration, as well as how immersive collaboration brings creativity and fun to the process of hashing out different story avenues.
Twinmotion for Art Departments
Go behind the scenes with Epic Games, Pixomondo, and Sony Electronics who partnered on one-of-a-kind training in virtual production for the Art Department Guild at Sony Pictures. The training gave more than 300 guild members a chance to get hands-on with the latest virtual production tools, including Twinmotion software, the Sony VERONA LED wall, and the VENICE 2 camera.Then check out our course, Twinmotion for Art Departments, which offers a comprehensive guide to using Twinmotion as a powerful visualization tool.
Virtual Production for Visualization Guide - Chapter 3
In this last chapter (for now) of the Visualization Guide, we cover things that you're going to need to know on the actual day of the shoot. Things like audio in the engine, take and sequence management, as well as different approaches to take recording.That last one could have a whole guide of its own. Then, we'll cover deliverables (by that, we mean what clients will expect to go home with). We'll also talk about Movie Render Queue, custom burn-ins, turnover to editorial, and postvis. Stick with us and we'll bring it home.
Your First Hour with Motion Designer
Transitioning Maya to Unreal for Animators
Texas A&M student short films
Visualization students took a deep dive into virtual production during the annual Summer Industry Course at Texas A&M. Sixteen students created three short films on a virtual production stage at Stray Vista Studios in Dripping Springs, supported by the Virtual Production Institute, which is part of the Texas A&M College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.This course is designed to teach students basic and advanced filmmaking techniques using virtual production on an LED volume. Additionally, it enables them to learn from professional industry department heads teaching the most up-to-date approaches to pre-production and production for lighting, camera, art, and Unreal Engine 5.
You can check out all of the short films here.
How to install Unreal Engine
Download the launcher
Before you can install and run Unreal Editor, you’ll need to download and install the Epic Games launcher.
Install Epic Games launcher
Once downloaded and installed, open the launcher and create or log in to your Epic Games account.
Get support, or restart your Epic Games launcher download in Step 1.
Install Unreal Engine
Once logged in, navigate to the Unreal Engine tab and click the Install button to download the most recent version.