How Unreal Engine Is Changing Star Wars, Theme Parks, and the Future of Movies

Unreal Engine is astir apt the astir well-known video crippled instrumentality acceptable successful the world. Its 5th iteration is the strategy that forms the instauration of Fortnite and dozens of different games, including Black Myth: Wukong, the Oblivion remaster, and the upcoming Witcher 4. But did you cognize that Unreal Engine is utilized for much than conscionable making video games? The technology, developed by Epic Games, has besides been utilized to make taxable parkland rides, tv shows, and movies – and is accelerated becoming a regular instrumentality for the amusement industry.

Taking centre signifier successful Galaxy’s Edge, the Star Wars-themed conception of Disney’s parks successful Florida and California, is the Millennium Falcon. Head wrong and you tin thrust Smuggler’s Run, a simulator acquisition that lets you aviator the iconic ship. It is genuinely awesome – you and your six-person unit person nonstop (if limited) power implicit the Falcon’s movements and weapons, and truthful arsenic you change the transportation and yaw of the ship, not lone does the full cockpit physically lurch around, your inputs are reflected successful the formation way and force encounters. All this means that the satellite beyond the cockpit’s windows isn’t conscionable a elemental video. It’s dynamic and interactive. Simply put, the squad astatine Walt Disney Imagineering person created a video game. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s built successful Unreal Engine.

During a caller presumption arsenic portion of Unreal Fest Orlando, Disney Imagineering’s Executive VP of Creative & Interactive Experiences, Asa Kalama, explained that Smuggler’s Run is based connected a “custom fork of Unreal Engine mentation 4 that supports a fig of peculiar effects that we and our partners astatine Industrial Light & Magic felt were truly important to present thing that feels cinematic. It feels similar you’re successful the movie.”

“[We did] a batch of enactment to make customized shaders and customized afloat surface abstraction effects similar bloom,” Kalama explains. “Motion blur was thing that we really had a batch of absorbing philosophical conversations around, due to the fact that successful existent beingness there's nary question blur, but a cardinal prime of making thing consciousness similar Star Wars and consciousness truly cinematic is the quality to person that effect on. So aft a batch of investigating and a batch of evaluation, we really determined that that was thing that made it consciousness much real, adjacent though successful information it was really somewhat little real.”

Many of Unreal’s built-in effects were not usable by Disney’s team, arsenic Smuggler’s Run’s 5 interlinked projectors needed to usage a cube representation rendering technique, which was incompatible with galore emblematic Unreal features. But the resulting customized subdivision of Unreal Engine 4, implicit with assets taken straight from Industrial Light & Magic’s library, means the ride’s integer effects some enactment arsenic intended and consciousness authentic.

The existent ngo utilized by Smuggler’s Run opened successful 2019, but a marque caller 1 is presently successful development, which is planned to motorboat alongside the merchandise of The Mandalorian and Grogu successful May 2026. While not linked to the events of the caller movie, Mando and his small person volition inactive diagnostic arsenic portion of the mission, which sees crews hunt down a high-stakes bounty.

“We're upgrading our amusement crippled computer, truthful latest procreation CPU graphics cards,” Kalama reveals. “And past we're besides moving from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, and we're truly excited astir each the further ocular fidelity that that's yet going to unlock for us.”

Image credit: Disney Imagineering

The ngo volition besides diagnostic branching pathways, allowing crews to research either Cloud City, Corouscant, oregon the wreckage of the Death Star depending connected the formation way they choose. “And then, adjacent wrong each of the level environments themselves, we've worked with our partners astatine ILM to make levels that person considerably much branching,” Kalama adds. “So that adjacent if you instrumentality to the aforesaid destination, there's a caller way oregon caller secrets to uncover.”

It seems similar the thought is to further blur the enactment betwixt taxable parkland thrust and video game, which successful crook volition heighten the immersive effect of really commanding the Millennium Falcon. Of course, Smuggler’s Run is acold from the archetypal Star Wars task to usage Unreal Engine successful an unconventional way. The strategy has been utilized to make the integer backdrops utilized successful TV shows similar The Mandalorian and Ahsoka. The Third Floor, a ocular effects institution based successful LA, has worked alongside Industrial Light & Magic to make those Star Wars shows.

“We started experimenting with crippled engines with assorted options successful the 2010s,” recalls The Third Floor’s Chief Creative Officer, Joshua Wassung. “And really, conscionable arsenic Unreal matured successful the mid 2010s, we started getting truly excited astir moving into that level and truly dove each successful for The Mandalorian successful 2019. [That’s] erstwhile we made the large shift."

Star Wars whitethorn beryllium successful a postulation far, acold away, but The Third Floor precocious took Unreal Engine to a full caller frontier – the satellite of The Predator. The caller movie from Prey manager Dan Trachtenberg, Predator: Killer of Killers, was wholly animated utilizing Unreal Engine 5.

“Unreal is simply a strategy that lets you bash truthful galore antithetic things,” Wassung enthuses. “It lets you prosecute your ain art. So our peculiar attack was that we truly wanted to thin into moving conception art. We wanted everything to beryllium manus painted.” Unreal Engine was utilized to ingest hundreds of paintings, which were past utilized by a real-time compositing strategy to blend aggregate layers together. “It was the flexibility of the motor that allowed america to truly propulsion that peculiar look that we were going for,” says Wassung.

One of the astir awesome sequences successful Predator: Killer of Killers replicates the “one-shot” benignant of filmmaking. In it we spot a Viking woman, Ursa, combat against an array of enemies successful 1 continuous, unbroken shot. This benignant is among the astir analyzable approaches to make successful live-action filmmaking, demanding extended rehearsal, strict timing, and pin-point precision. It’s a antithetic communicative erstwhile animating successful Unreal, wherever there’s nary accidental of an histrion flubbing their enactment oregon missing their mark. But that’s not to accidental determination aren’t immoderate challenges.

“There's truthful galore parts,” says Wassung. “I deliberation we had 98 characters each warring successful that scene. And truthful we person possibly conscionable a fistful of animators. So juggling however to choreograph them is incredibly complex. But past you besides person to animate the camera successful a mode that feels similar you're truly there. It's conscionable truthful overmuch thought goes into it, and it took months, but we emotion the result.”

But portion creating a “one-shot”, oregon so immoderate shot, successful Unreal is acold from a locomotion successful the park, determination are galore tools disposable successful the motor that assistance easiness accumulation woes. Ambitious projects tin beryllium made comparatively quickly, which successful crook tin trim budgets.

“Unreal does fto you enactment successful parallel, truthful that you person teams moving a spot much simultaneously, which does velocity up the production, and clip is money,” Wassung says.

“But the different happening is the real-time feedback,” helium notes. “Typically, shots successful an animated diagnostic mightiness instrumentality an creator accidental one, two, adjacent 3 weeks for 1 shot. Our quota, erstwhile the squad got going, was 4 to 5 hours per changeable per creator for First Pass, which is conscionable insanely quick. So it's truly the time, the information that you tin spell faster allows you to prevention costs overall.”

This outgo redeeming constituent is unlocking caller filmmaking possibilities. Rebellion Developments, the proprietor of Judge Dredd and the wider 2000 AD comics universe, is presently processing a caller Rogue Trooper movie. Set connected the convulsive battlefields of the acold future, this comic adaptation would apt outgo hundreds of millions of dollars to nutrient if made utilizing much accepted filmmaking techniques. But Rogue Trooper is not a live-action movie, nor a classically-developed CGI film. Instead, it is being made successful Unreal Engine 5.

“We're importantly cheaper,” Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley told IGN successful an interrogation past year. “We've done it connected an indie budget. We've by necessity had to negociate the currency travel due to the fact that it's america making this. It's not a large workplace doing it.”

Kingsley goes connected to enactment that specified savings “perhaps takes immoderate of the shackles of constricted fund disconnected radical who privation to marque thing indie and creative. I anticipation it does. I anticipation it's the opening of thing truly exciting.”

While Rebellion is the custodian of 2000 AD, the institution is champion known for processing video games, specified arsenic the Sniper Elite series. And truthful comes the large question: without the Hollywood-grade tools utilized by the likes of Industrial Light & Magic and Wētā FX, volition Rogue Trooper conscionable beryllium a feature-length video crippled cutscene?

“One of the cardinal points was to marque it precise overmuch not look similar a video game,” Kingsley emphasises. “So we person nonrecreational movie makers moving connected this. We person cinematographers, we person movie lighting experts, we've got each the radical with the qualifications to marque the champion imaginable movies.”

Image credit: Rebellion Developments

Among those radical with qualifications is Duncan Jones, manager of Moon, Source Code, and the CGI effects-heavy Warcraft movie. With Jones astatine the helm and a tiny service of nonrecreational filmmakers backing him, Rebellion has each the radical required to guarantee Rogue Trooper doesn’t look similar it’s moving connected an Xbox.

Rogue Trooper’s cast, which features Aneurin Barnard, Hayley Atwell, Sean Bean, and Matt Berry among galore others, is being brought to beingness with the assistance of MetaHuman rigs, a quality instauration and motion-capture exertion built into Unreal Engine 5. The strategy was not utilized by The Third Floor for Predator: Killer of Killers, but Wassung inactive sees a batch of worth successful it.

“So galore times you're making CG humans for immoderate reason. They mightiness beryllium conscionable doubles for a stunt, oregon they mightiness beryllium your pb character. You're benignant of doing the aforesaid enactment implicit and implicit again, astatine slightest connected a basal level,” helium explains. “And I deliberation that MetaHuman is this tremendous shortcut due to the fact that a batch of that enactment is present already built into this tool. So I deliberation that that allows a young filmmaker by themselves to leap close into a quality that's already astatine this precise precocious level.”

For Rebellion and its animation partners astatine Treehouse Digital, features similar MetaHumans and the ocular effects that Unreal Engine 5 is susceptible of person been cardinal to bringing the unusual satellite of Rogue Trooper to life. “What we're not trying to bash is marque it look precisely the aforesaid arsenic it would if we were filming unrecorded action,” says Kingsley. “We are taking vantage of the integer abstraction truthful we tin bash much with volumetric fogging, for example, than you could successful existent life.”

While Unreal Engine whitethorn inactive beryllium predominantly known for its usage successful video crippled development, it’s wide that it has softly dispersed its scope passim galore different sectors of the amusement industries. The postulation of Star Wars is practically agreed by Unreal, with shows, games, and taxable parkland rides each making usage of the engine. Elsewhere, we’re seeing the tech utilized successful galore filmmaking corners, from the pre-planning of the godforsaken sequences successful Dune: Part 2, to full movies created successful the engine, specified arsenic Predator: Killer of Killers and Rogue Trooper. One happening seems certain: that database volition lone support connected increasing arsenic caller studios and caller creatives statesman to experimentation with Epic Games’ versatile technology.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.