Using real-time workflows in animation is a game-changer!

The Indian industry is growing steadily as consumers anticipate more animated content than ever before. Not only have the requests for entertainment from children increased, but so have the requests from adults. In addition to changing viewer profiles, several technological and economic disruptions have impacted the industry. And the animation industry has adapted to the new conditions, but it’s still difficult to create high-quality material at a reasonable cost.

An animation workflow or pipeline is a system of people, hardware, and software that work in a specified sequential sequence to perform predetermined tasks within a predetermined amount of time, resulting in a product or asset of animation as the final output. It takes too much time and costs too much to create content from script to screen. Modelers, riggers, directors, editors and a host of other professionals are involved throughout the process, from pre-production to post-production, to bring the project to life on screen.

It can be difficult to reduce the production budget, regardless of the platform our animation project is intended for. The entertainment value of a story is its main content. In the old pipeline, the script is first planned by the producer on a storyboard stage, and then the different departments work uniformly for several months to generate the final version. Iteration becomes a very inefficient procedure if someone misinterprets the producer’s instructions, if the quality is poor, or if a superior vision emerges.

Real-time rendering is all about interaction. This implies that the images you see – typically in a video game, but also in augmented and virtual reality, as well as mobile apps – are produced fast enough for a user to interact or move through the environment. Because complex images take longer to render, real-time rendering has never achieved the same level of fidelity as final renders in visual effects and animation programs.

Unreal Engine’s modern levels of real-time rendering allow animators to quickly evaluate various ideas without incurring astronomical expense. Unreal Engine is a powerful technology that offers many benefits to producers in the film and animation industries, as this story makes clear. The new pipeline had to be fully constructed, but this effort dramatically reduced the time and total cost of production and enabled the greatest decision making. This will allow content creators to take center stage in the future and open the door to a market for original material.

Let’s see the benefits of using real-time workflows in animation, it’s a game-changer!

  • Real-time rendering to increase productivity

As animators, we are constantly looking for faster and more efficient ways to complete tasks as well as tools that encourage experimentation and more creativity. Real-time rendering in Unreal Engine allowed filmmakers to quickly push edits that sped production from pre-production to post-production phases. The new Unreal Engine creates a 4K image in less than five seconds with ray tracing enabled, while the previous tool took at least 30 minutes each 2K resolution frame.

Real-time feedback is given to all participants thanks to Unreal Engine’s extensive real-time rendering, which drives tremendous innovation. Its real-time rendering features enable remote collaboration for narrative review sessions in addition to providing immediate feedback on a sequence. This allowed them to make judgments about the set based on displays that displayed sequences with actor-led characters that were seamlessly integrated into the background. The director can quickly give instructions and make judgments while keeping an eye on the screen.

  • Pushing the limits of the artist

Artists were unable to focus on asset development due to a number of factors, including short timelines and tight financial constraints. Houdini was used to procedurally model the simple but time-consuming props, as no other artists were available to optimize the assets with a level of detail in the gaming industry. They are able to work closely with actors motion capture, communicate acting instructions, see the finished product, and push their own limits without being constrained by their assigned positions.

Epic has also rolled out plenty of free tools to learn how to animate with the engine, although mastering a new tool can be daunting. It is possible to produce with half as many people. In the previous pipeline, similar to a relay race, the content source was carried over from previous stages and built using a single program. The crew can examine the finished product and go beyond their limits with Unreal Engine, instead of being constrained to their individual roles.

Due to the ability to see finished pixels in real time, the use of performance capture and virtual production technologies in Unreal Engine results in more realistic character movements and reduced production time. This allowed for the best decision making and significantly reduced overall production time and expense. Going forward, each studio will strive to shoot a piece from start to finish entirely with Unreal Engine.

(Hansa Mondal, COO, Softoons)

About Clara Barnard

Check Also

On-the-road review: Hyundai Ioniq5 Limited electric vehicle

Hyundai Motor Co. (including Kia and Genesis) will soon be America’s best-selling electric vehicle maker, …