Interesting Twitter thread proposing game engines ...
# thinking-togetherr
robenkleene
08/10/2020, 9:27 PMInteresting Twitter thread proposing game engines are becoming more popular for non-gaming use cases. These were the most interesting examples he gave to me:
The Mandalorian and The Lion King were shot almost exclusively using these tools.
Even Hong Kong International Airport uses a "digital twin" built on Unity to simulate changes in passenger volumeHe doesn't share many references or links with more details. I'd love to hear from anyone if they have more examples of game engines being used for non-gaming use cases like these. Or any links or other information to share related to this topic. https://twitter.com/aaronzlewis/status/1291889682788253696
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Ivan Reese
08/10/2020, 9:47 PM
Here's a good article (I think this is the one I read) discussing the techniques used in The Mandalorian.
https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/art-of-led-wall-virtual-production-part-one-lessons-from-the-mandalorian/
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Ivan Reese
08/10/2020, 9:48 PM
I found this particular bit really interesting:
Latency and Lag
From the time Profile’s system received camera-position information to Unreal’s rendering of the new position on the LED wall, there was about an 8 frame delay. This delay could be slightly longer if the signal had to also then be fed back to say a Steadicam operator. To allow for this when the team was rendering high resolution, camera-specific patches behind the actor (showing the correct parallax from the camera’s point of view) the team would actually render a 40% larger oversized patch. This additional error margin gave a camera operator room to pan or tilt and not see the edge of the patch before the system could catch up with the correct field of view.
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Robert Butler
08/10/2020, 11:51 PMWow, this pretty much blew me away. Really aren't far from at least the visual aspects of the holodeck.
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wtaysom
08/11/2020, 5:29 AM@Ivan Reese Got to love the hacks!
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Ivan Reese
08/11/2020, 1:19 PM
@wtaysom It's the 8-frame amount latency, specifically, that caught my attention. That's a lot of lag. Between that and the LED pixel pitch forcing them to shoot soft, it seems like they still would need to digitally replace the background in post. It makes me wonder if they'll ever not need to replace the background.
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Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 2:49 AMI'm biased, but I think a lot of software that doesn't look like dynamic documents/forms (which is a lot of software, text editors, social networks, etc) and looks more like simulation or dynamic worlds will be made in game engines, this includes current industries that can utilize real-time now and new industries
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Ivan Reese
08/12/2020, 3:27 AM
Do you mean "game engines" generally, including things that run on the web, or Unity and Unreal specifically, which don't really have a web story?
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Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:37 AMGenerally in that Godot or something new could take market share from Unity or Unreal or at least be a serious player in the space, also it's possible that higher level tools and environments that look like games (Dreams for example) will be more important in this space
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:37 AMUnity and Unreal both run on the web, and Unity's web support isn't bad
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:37 AMI mean people deploy games that run in the browser all the time
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:38 AMI guess I make a distinction there because it means people (probably) won't be using web tech to make game like things, there's not a real path to it
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:38 AMThree.js is pretty nice
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:40 AMBut I don't see a future where most spatial applications are made with Three.js, it seems to have a niche where you want to embed 3D models in a mostly traditional web site
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:40 AMBut there aren't a ton of games made with Three.js in the grand scheme of things
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:44 AMSo because the browser doesn't answer the runtime or authoring environment question for spatial applications (3D, 2D or XR) it will still be around but mostly as a deployment mechanism and OS sandbox (WebGL/WebGPU and Wasm)
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 3:59 AMWe could see a browser like platform with better support for 3D, but that seems hard to get off the ground right now, the browser is kind of too important for that kind of experimentation (although Mozilla does some) and everyone else wants to make walled garden platforms because it's a better business model than open standards
Scott Anderson
08/12/2020, 4:09 AMAlso I don't think traditional web apps will go away, I only think as more game like applications become important the web won't be the primary platform for implementing them, it will be something like a game engine, even if the web is a deployment target
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