Level up: how Epic Games is redefining car design

Epic Games is best known for its work in, well, gaming. But beyond its original playground it has also seen an epic rise in automotive design, from early stage prototyping and visualisation to design reviews and marketing.

Many will already be keenly aware of Unreal Engine (UE) and employ it on a daily basis. But some may be less familiar with its more recent application in HMI and Twinmotion, a standalone real-time visualisation tool within the Epic ecosystem. In combination, these interlinked solutions eliminate silos, boost creativity and bring teams closer together. It is a game changer across multiple domains within the transportation design sphere.

Both UE and Twinmotion share the same technology spectrum but offer different advantages. While Twinmotion is built on Unreal Engine and offers the same great results, it is a convenient entry point to visualisation with a simplified front end experience; UE takes things a step above for more advanced tasks.

“UE is essentially this huge magic toolbox which enables you to build complex, high-end experiences,” says Colin Smith, senior product manager for Twinmotion. “Twinmotion enables you to bring in CAD files, assign materials, optimise lighting and more in a super flexible environment, and can eventually lead you into even greater things with Unreal Engine if you wanted to. There’s a clear pipeline between those two products.”

Looking back even as recently as five years or so, UE’s impact on the industry has been significant. Here was a technology that already had a strong foundation for open world videogaming like Fortnite, but very quickly found a place in the toolbox of car designers, opening their’ eyes to what is possible beyond their existing suite of products.

“There was a realisation that this is very much a sea change,” recalls Smith. “It became clear that Epic was not just playing around, it was serious. Everyone in this space could see what was possible with real-time engines and began to overlook existing tools in the market.”

Indeed, it has pushed visualisation to new levels, turning raw 3D data into cinematic, immersive experiences – and fast. It goes beyond a revolving 360-degree view of an exterior to something that can showcase (and interact with) practically any element inside of a vehicle, all in the context of a realistic virtual world.

A functional, beautiful final product is great. But if it takes an age to create, that’s a problem. Today, automotive product cycles are shortening to a point where multiple new vehicles are launching per brand, per year. Even legacy OEMs have halved their time to market in a bid to keep up with new entrants. Lotus, for example, has found the Epic ecosystem particularly useful as it balances speed with quality, with chief creative officer Ben Payne noting that timelines are now routinely under three years.

Doing more in less time, all while catering to heightened expectations from end customers, is no mean feat. Cars are becoming increasingly software-oriented, and the buying experience is reflecting that shift as well. For developers in various fields of automotive design, the combination of UE and Twinmotion has done more than just ease that pressure. It has changed how teams work, turning a hurdle into a step up.

“In the past, we were really tired of how long it took to produce images and, at the same time, everything was becoming more dynamic. Static content and short product videos weren’t cutting it anymore,” says Mike Weiss, senior solution architect for Unreal Engine.

“Being able to accelerate the turnaround of more advanced, interactive content was just the beginning,” he continues. “At Unreal Fest last year we showcased a BMW 5 Series and how we could iterate the design of that experience through a real-time capture. It’s really freeing – liberating even – because you get the quality and the speed. A lot of the things we had been trying to do forever become possible and, for cinematics, it was clear this elevation of gaming technology wasn’t just a fad.”

More recently, UE has proven a game-changer for HMI developers. It has in fact been used this way for some five years already, but in the automotive space awareness has grown and snowballed somewhat. Epic Games has not left any mystique around its intentions in this space, with the goal of creating “best-in-class HMI, infotainment and digital cockpit experiences.”

Aunmar Mohammed, technical account manager for Unreal Engine HMI, notes that the software wasn’t actively marketed to enterprise customers in automotive – they just took it and ran with it. Today, designers can create full photorealistic renders in a fraction of the time it took previously – minutes and hours versus days and weeks – and the same shift is happping in HMI development.

“I’ve worked in all sorts of different industries, but HMI is hands down the most complex,” says Mohammed. “It’s not easy to scale up with standard HMI software, but with Unreal Engine in your embedded systems you can scale up like that [clicks fingers].” At Rivian, this has helped the team create a series of personalised UI themes, with chief design officer Jeff Hammoud noting that UE has helped to “push entirely new artistic boundaries.”

Importantly, multiple teams and pipelines can work in conjunction. “You used to have to wait for the data to be modeled and created,” Mohammed explains. “It would then need to be converted and visualised before you could go through and create your renders. But right at the beginning with Unreal Engine and Twinmotion you can bring in these early designs and prototypes while working with the UI/UX teams to see how that HMI experience will look.”

This article highlights three distinct applications – Unreal Engine, Twinmotion and UE for HMI – but it is crucial to remember they do not operate in isolation. They are interlinked and communicate freely, making the transition between different teams a piece of cake as projects progress.

“You aren’t jumping between siloed applications,” concludes Smith, “it’s a really nice symbiotic relationship.” Just ask brands like Rivian and Volvo Cars, who have all shared their own success stories in recent years. There are plenty of others.

The link between Epic and automotive is more than skin deep, bringing experts who have lived and worked in the automotive world for years. For instance, between Smith, Weiss and Mohammed there are over 60 years of combined experience in the automotive world, working directly with OEMs or developing software tools for the industry. This is just a snapshot of the in-house Epic family.

To learn more about the Epic Games ecosystem and how it is redefining transportation design and visualisation, join us for a livestream with experts on 29th October.