Unreal Engine DMX Previz Demo

[vlfaudio]

Came across this today while idly surfing. Unreal Engine now has support for DMX and there's a sample project available to download.

 

Unreal Engine DMX Previz

 

 

[empyfree]

That link 404’s for me. I found this though. https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/WorkingWithMedia/DMX/index.html

[pscandrett]

That link 404’s for me. I found this though. https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/WorkingWithMedia/DMX/index.html

Bizarrely hotlinking to it gives a 404, but navigating to it via the rest of the site shows it fine. Put 'Moment Factory' into the search on the 404 page and navigate to it from there (top link at the moment) and it'll show up.

[timsabre]

Can someone explain what this would be used for? It looks like the rendering part of Capture or WYG without the fixture library part.

[vlfaudio]

Can someone explain what this would be used for? It looks like the rendering part of Capture or WYG without the fixture library part.

It's a tech demo. There's now a DMX API built into Unreal Engine. Lots of info on the site about it's use in TV and Film production.Apologies the link doesn't work, the site does seem to have disabled hotlinking.. I'll attempt to correct the original post.

 

 

[timsabre]

I get what it is but I don't understand how you would use it to make an accurate visualisation - wouldn't you have to model every individual fixture you wanted to use including the optics, gobos, colours etc?

[vlfaudio]

[

I get what it is but I don't understand how you would use it to make an accurate visualisation - wouldn't you have to model every individual fixture you wanted to use including the optics, gobos, colours etc?

Unreal is an engine, so yes it would be possible to roll your own assets. There's an Unreal Marketplace for "game" assets, and given they are heavily selling Live Events as a use case, I'd imagine that marketplace will contain pre rolled production assets. .

Edited March 24, 2021 by vlfaudio

[niclights]

According to the documentation you can import GDTF fixtures. So you could obtain 'assets' that way, including the ability to make your own with via the GDTF builder. However, the documentation says this only imports the xml at the moment which would mean no gobo images or 3D model information. Edited March 24, 2021 by niclights

[James]

I get what it is but I don't understand how you would use it to make an accurate visualisation - wouldn't you have to model every individual fixture you wanted to use including the optics, gobos, colours etc?

 

Unless someone creates as whole load of fixtures I don't think this is of much use for visualisation. Where this would be of a lot of interest is for dynamically "lighting" virtual sets in real time, using DMX control for lighting within the Unreal engine.

 

James.

[indyld]

One of my students has been doing a research project on virtual events and mixed reality shows, including the use of the Unreal engine and camera tracking techniques and the use of stuff like the HTC Vive. There are already a number of these hybrid shows, notably in e-sports.

 

Unreal, like similar engines, is highly flexible and so there is a lot you can do with it. Pre-vis software has a fairly specific use-case whereas things like Unreal can be the force behind a much wider range techniques and ideas.

Edited March 25, 2021 by indyld

[Pete McCrea]

Unreal is being used very heavily to drive large LED screen backgrounds to film against, often with a roof of LED as well. Placing fixtures in the model that then can be controlled by DMX gives the ability to adjust the way the lighting falls on the subject within the space, allowing you to very accurately light a subject and making it look really real. This enables the DOP to composite the shot in camera, needing little post work to get it looking spot on, where as before, if they'd green screened the shot, everything had to be comp'd in afterwards in post.

 

We've been working hard to get a deliverable solution alongside a team of creatives - that give some images of the smaller setup we delivered in November. Last week we delivered a shoot with a 19m x 4m wall, spine of LED roof and moveable LED walls for a major car manufacturer.