The world's most advanced
3D animation software

Create stunning animated content rendered in real time, in any visual style you can dream of. Download for free and start animating today ↓

Get Unreal Engine

Learn about licensing

Courtesy of Steamroller Animation

Get started for free in 2 easy steps:

Download the Epic Games launcher on your computer
Open launcher and install Unreal Engine

Work smarter, faster, and more creatively
Iterate in real time without constraints
Produce animation in any style
Extend your IP to games, mobile, VR, and beyond

Download now

A game-changing toolset for animated storytelling

Control the narrative

Built for collaboration, Sequencer is Unreal Engine's fully nonlinear, real-time cinematic editing and animation tool that enables you to define and modify lighting, camera blocking, characters and set dressing on a per-shot basis. You can even create new animation by blending animation clips together. With Sequencer, teams of artists can work on entire sequences simultaneously to develop and refine your story throughout the production process.

Courtesy of Snafu Pictures | Netflix | AbleBaker

Craft the look

From the flexible node-based Material Editor that enables you to layer materials and fine-tune values at the pixel level, to sophisticated lighting that includes an atmospheric Sun and Sky system, Unreal Engine gives you the freedom to craft any look that you want—then iterate to your heart's content. What's more, with support for strand-based hair and fur, your cast of characters can include everything from adorable animals to bearded buddies—without waiting for an eternity for renders!

Courtesy of Adam Valdez

Perfect your performances

Whether you choose to animate your characters with keyframes or drive their performances with mocap data, Unreal Engine has the tools you need. Control Rig is a scriptable node-based rigging system designed to provide artists with tools to create flexible, dynamic, and procedural rigs with animator-friendly interfaces. And with Live Link, you can stream data from a variety of sources—even your iPhone—directly onto your characters in real time.

Animate in context, finish with polish

With Unreal Engine, you can forget working with low-quality render settings or playblasting clips to see results; instead, you'll interact with your characters in a fully lit and rendered real-time environment that gives you the complete context for your animation, including a wide range of post-process effects; advanced particles, physics, and destruction; and even real-time ray tracing. And when you're ready, you can output your finished frames with settings that deliver uncompromised quality, still at a fraction of the time of offline rendering. Final pixels—fast.

Courtesy of Waldemar Peter

Download Unreal Engine

Newest animation features in UE 5.7

Motion Trails

You can now edit your animation more visually and intuitively with the complete redesign of Motion Trails. Unified for both actors and character controls, you can adjust your arcs and spacing directly in the viewport. Choose from styles like Dashed, Time-based, and Heat/Speed mode, and access features that include pinning, offsets, and spaces for even more precision.

Unreal Engine is powering animated content across the globe

How an indie animation team of four uses UE5 to produce BellyFant

BellyFant is the star of a popular children’s show on YouTube that has garnered over 50 million views. Discover how an indie team of just four uses Unreal Engine to produce the animated shorts—and how they’ve rediscovered the fun in animating to boot.

Mummysboy Limited

Cory Williams makes hit children’s YouTube channel featuring Silly Crocodile

Content creator Cory Williams has his dream job: producing videos starring a playful crocodile for his Just For Kids channel on YouTube. Find out how a real-time pipeline helps Cory make content fast while still connecting with kids.

Cory Williams

Inside the ‘Unreal Tournament’ episode of Secret Level with Blur Studio

Blur Studio is well-known in the animation industry for their movie-quality game cinematics, and more recently, the Netflix anthology series Love, Death + Robots. The studio was founded in 1995 with the idea of “art before commerce,” an approach that has served them well as they’ve moved from strength to strength.

Blur Studio

From 1980s cartoons to the metaverse: a voyage into Spice Frontier’s retro 2D look

Discover how Steamroller Animation achieved a 2D, 1980s-cartoon aesthetic in Unreal Engine for animated show Spice Frontier—and expanded the universe of the story with a Fortnite island made in UEFN.

Steamroller Animation

Licensing

We’ve streamlined our license terms to make your choices clearer. Need something designed just for you? Work with us to create a custom license. Visit our FAQ or reach out to the community if you have any questions.

Under $1 million USD in revenue?

Free

Game developers (royalties apply after $1 million USD gross product revenue)
Individuals and small businesses (with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue)
For educators and schools (no revenue limits)

Access to the source code
All platforms & features
Forums and documentation on the Epic Developer Community

Download now View FAQ Licensing Terms

Over $1 million USD in revenue?

Royalty-based

If you're creating a game or application that relies on engine code at runtime and will be licensed to third party end users, you'll pay royalties and won't be required to purchase seats.

Seat-based

If you're using Unreal Engine for commercial purposes, have generated more than $1 million in the past 12 months, and are not creating a game or application that relies on engine code at runtime and will be licensed to third party end users, then a seat license fee is required.

Got questions?

Let us help.

Got questions about how Unreal Engine licensing works? We're here to guide you - Sign in (or create an Epic Games account) and someone from our team will be in touch.

A game-changing toolset for animated storytelling

Control the narrative

Courtesy of Snafu Pictures | Netflix | AbleBaker

Craft the look

Courtesy of Adam Valdez

Perfect your performances

Animate in context, finish with polish

Courtesy of Waldemar Peter

Download Unreal Engine

The world's most advanced 3D animation software

Get started for free in 2 easy steps:

A game-changing toolset for animated storytelling