Courtesy of Geely Auto
Tech Blog
March 27, 2025
Geely Galaxy E8 smart cockpit: inspired by the stars, powered by Unreal Engine
From Galileo Galilei to Edwin Hubble and NASA, the night sky has captured the imagination of countless pioneers. The Galaxy E8, Geely’s award-winning flagship model and the brand’s first fully electric vehicle, embraces humanity's fascination with the universe, and the notion of innovation in civilization and technology.
The Galaxy E8 was designed to deliver a premium, human-centric experience via both inside and out. While the aerodynamic exterior twinkles with lights reminiscent of the stars, the cockpit is where you’ll find one of the car’s most striking features: a 45-inch, 8K-resolution boundless smart screen with 2D and 3D graphics powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 flagship cockpit chip and Unreal Engine.
The Galaxy E8 was designed to deliver a premium, human-centric experience via both inside and out. While the aerodynamic exterior twinkles with lights reminiscent of the stars, the cockpit is where you’ll find one of the car’s most striking features: a 45-inch, 8K-resolution boundless smart screen with 2D and 3D graphics powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 flagship cockpit chip and Unreal Engine.
Unreal Engine-powered experiences
Unreal Engine's capabilities were also leveraged to design dynamic, time-dependent ambient lighting. For example, when a user opens one of the Galaxy E8’s doors on a rainy or snowy day, simulated starlight flows from one side to the other, creating an immersive and atmospheric effect.
As for the digital twin experience, there’s an interactive 3D model of the Galaxy E8 on the desktop where users can control functions like headlights, doors, windows, and the trunk. Various car control representations, such as air conditioning airflow, were also developed using Unreal Engine.
Courtesy of Geely Auto
With minimalist UI design, the result is a convenient and smooth interactive experience, an immersive audiovisual feast that can be likened to that of a theater.
To find out more about this innovation, we asked the smart cockpit team at the Geely Automobile Research Institute (GARI) about their use of Unreal Engine to develop this immersive, intelligent, and secure cockpit experience.
To find out more about this innovation, we asked the smart cockpit team at the Geely Automobile Research Institute (GARI) about their use of Unreal Engine to develop this immersive, intelligent, and secure cockpit experience.
Courtesy of Geely Auto
Geely’s HMI challenges and solutions
In developing the Galaxy E8’s 8K display, the GARI team’s primary challenge was creating a human-machine interface (HMI) with seamless real-time performance while maintaining low system consumption, smooth operation, and high visual fidelity. To achieve this, the GARI team employed several strategies:
Dynamic frame strategy. Different frame rates were implemented based on the types of visuals and interaction. Foreground elements are locked at 25 fps for smooth interactions, while a three-tier frame strategy—15 fps, 5 fps, and freeze mode—was developed for lower-priority scenarios to optimize system resource allocation.
Hierarchical resource management. Resources for the 8K screen include both 2D and 3D assets, at a ratio of 1:9. To achieve smooth transitions and a lag-free experience, only the 3D car model is stored in memory, while all other assets are silently loaded in the background.
Interactive strategy. Signal sources are limited to HMI signals and touch inputs, with a distinction between instant and cached data links. In addition, out-of-order and iterative signals are efficiently handled through L2 caching and classification.
Courtesy of Geely Auto
Why Geely chose Unreal Engine for HMI
Geely’s HMI project required the development of a custom operating system (Galaxy N-OS) with deep code-level integration. The GARI team, realizing that a game engine offers greater capability and scalability than traditional tools, evaluated several commercial engines such as Unity, Cocos, and Unreal Engine.
The GARI team ultimately chose Unreal Engine for its real-time rendering capabilities and its customizable engine tailored for HMI system development. GARI also cited Unreal Engine’s open-source nature, which gave team members the ability to conduct secondary development and customize functions efficiently, while also offering greater flexibility in optimizing performance.
After evaluating several real-time rendering engines, the team chose Unreal Engine for its comprehensive toolchain ecosystem and high-quality rendering, and Level design tools that simplify the process from basic DCC to level import. Unreal Engine features that stood out for GARI included:
- Visual programming with the Blueprint visual scripting system simplifies the design and implementation of complex interaction logic within the HMI system. Blueprint functionality covers level, normal, gameplay, and material Blueprints, and supports the quick realization of logic, material, transition, and other features through Blueprint nodes, accelerating both POC and project engineering development in later stages.
- High-quality rendering with Unreal Engine's advanced rendering engine ensures high-quality graphics, essential for creating realistic user interfaces and immersive visual effects.
- The Physics simulation system enhances realism of interactions with vehicle body objects by accurately replicating real-world physical effects, making interactions more intuitive and engaging.
- Broad platform support including PCs, gaming consoles, mobile devices, and more, ensures that the developed HMI system can be easily deployed and run on different hardware configurations.
Courtesy of Geely Auto
Key Unreal Engine features for HMI development
The Geely HMI customization process included multiple stages: concept proposal, requirement analysis, interface concept design, 3D engine art restoration, engine software development, vehicle function integration, engine and system optimization, and finally, on-board testing and delivery.
For development, Geely relied on several features and tools, including:
- Levels, to enable seamless scene transitions and smooth one-take experiences.
- Variants, to simplify and speed up asset management during runtime.
- Sequencer, for efficient transition and animation production when combined with Level Sequences.
- Commonly used Blueprints for animations and materials.
- Lightmaps, post process effects, and more.
- Unreal Insights, for optimizing startup time.
- Unreal Frontend, for optimizing performance.
- Command line debugging tools such as Stats System and Memreport.
Looking ahead
Through the successful implementation and delivery of the project, the Geely design team has become even more committed to embracing new technologies and pushing the boundaries of HMI innovation. Looking ahead, in the upcoming smart driving version, Geely will introduce new features such as Galaxy Assisted Driving, automatic parking, and home-zone park assist.
In the future, HMI products integrating large AI models and 3D engines will redefine the driving experience in ways never imagined. This evolution will require even closer cooperation between 3D engine teams and automotive manufacturers.
Unreal Engine will play a key role in building virtual views for these advanced driving functions, as its capabilities are deeply integrated into almost every aspect of Galaxy N-OS, enhancing both functionality and user experience.