Menu
With Unreal Engine 5 here and in full swing, the gaming and entertainment industries are keeping a keen eye on its vfx capabilities. At Magic Media, our teams have been working closely with its evolved and growing toolset to bring even greater results to the projects we contribute to.
It’s no secret that Unreal Engine and its latest release have had a huge impact on the gaming and VFX industries. Gaming for its incredible new technologies that will change the gaming industry, which our partners at Starloop Studios spoke about.
And in the real-time VFX world we’ve seen how previously exclusive gaming technology is being leveraged. The Star Wars T.V series, The Mandalorian, partnered with Epic Games to create a custom on-set technology based on Unreal Engine to deliver its stunning visual backgrounds. It changed the world for actors on projects that heavily utilised VFX for its world and setting, allowing them to see the world around them, rendered in real time via Unreal Engine.
There’s no need to explain the importance of VFX in gaming, as it forms the backbone of players’ visual experience! We’ve talked at length about the advantages of Unreal Engine 5 for game development, and about how to choose your game’s art style. This is because we’ve seen how important the visual elements are. VFX and visual art style set the tone for your game, for the world and themes your player is about to experience. Despite our desire to feel and live out each experience, we are slaves to the visual.
We make impressions of everything we see within the first few moments and gaming is a cut-throat business. If your animation, VFX, or art is lacking or not up to snuff, players will drop off without giving you a chance.
This isn’t just focused on the rising photorealism in gaming which we are seeing more often. And Unreal Engine has always boasted a high-graphical premium. Unreal Engine 5 offers this in spades, introducing more advanced simulations, lighting systems, and character creation. But aside from the growing photorealism available to developers, even a stylised and non-photoreal game needs to pull its weight visually.
Our teams are all focused on creating the best possible experience for players. We understand that one of the first steps, one that must always be kept consistent, is the visual style. We often sound like a broken record when discussing it!
But it must be said repeatedly; when it comes to gaming, player immersion and experience lives and dies with proper VFX, art, and animation. VFX, in particular, gives players the weight and visual feedback as well as inform players on game mechanics and environmental hazards or boons! We’ve spoken before about how important VFX is in visual communicating game information.
This is where Unreal Engine 5 is standing out amongst its peers. It isn’t just its included Niagara VFX System, which isn’t a new addition, but simply an improved one. It is the capability of the engine that makes Unreal Engine such a VFX powerhouse.
When it comes to delivering a stellar visual player experience, the capacity on Unreal Engine 5 and its tools are a great place to start. Niagara, like all features of UE5, has comprehensive documentation. And there you can find out how to implement features like the in-built fluid simulations for smoke, gases, flames, and water, as well as collisions and custom modules.
The capacity of game engines is now extending outside of gaming. As mentioned for The Mandalorian, with its unique “StageCraft” on-set live VFX, the entertainment industry is beginning to see the potential. No more giant blue and green screens with actors imagining the world around them. No more painstaking VFX clean-ups for reflections of huge green and blue tarps.
The importance of VFX in gaming extends beyond the mechanical communication. Its potential is limitless and its important to understand that no matter the leaps the entertainment industry is making, it’s only catching up to gaming. Now that we see movies and T.V shows picking up this technology and experimenting, it really speaks to the boundless potential gaming has to explore.
Interested in the potential high-quality VFX we can deliver to your project? Get in touch today! Magic Media offers comprehensive VFX services for in-game, cinematics, and more, as well as animation and full art services!
