GDC 2017 is making waves as one of the major conferences in the gaming industry that unveils the latest innovation and progress each company has produced. This year's GDC is no different than any other year except that, this year, Epic has given a preview of their latest additions to its Unreal Engine VR Editor. This means that developers would eventually have the capability to be in the environment that they are developing via VR while also having the full use of all the tool sets they need.
Unreal Engine VR Editor
Talking to Upload, Mike Fricker, Technical Director at Epic Games, said that working in VR would provide the right sense of scale that is necessary to make realistic and believable environments. And with the use of motion controllers, developers can make environments using natural hand motions and interactions.
Furthermore, using VR not only allows members of the development team access to the project, but it also speeds up the development. According to Fricker, VR makes navigating through a scene easy, unlike when developers use a desktop where they would need to use complicated mouse and keyboard combinations plus multiple modifier keys just to get around the environment they are developing. He adds that in VR, the developer would know exactly what they would end up with and it's really fast once they get used to it.
On the other hand, it is known that some people get motion sickness when using VR, but Lauren Ridge, Tools Programmer at Epic Games, said that they've put in a lot of precautions so that developers won't get sick while using the Unreal Engine VR Editor. She goes on to say that because of all the precautions they've placed, no one in Epic Games had suffered any motion sickness when using the VR editor.
Other Use Of The Unreal Engine VR Editor
In an article by Polygon, Epic Games announced that their VR editor would support the USD or Universal Scene Description, a tool used by companies like Disney and Pixar that allows the improvement of 3D scenes that are composed of multiple elemental assets.
Furthermore, during the GDC 2017, the company showcased the abilities of the Unreal Engine VR Editor by using a scene from the movie Finding Dory. Polygon further states that the tool would benefit filmmakers and game developers as it allows them to reduce the amount of work that is needed to transmit data in a particular scene at a faster and effective rate. Ridge further says that, they know that the film industry would love the Unreal Engine VR Editor and that Epic Games hopes to keep working with Pixar to improve their VR Editor as well as USD.
The Unreal Engine VR Editor is expected to be released on April 17, 2017. Hopefully, this product would not only elevate gaming standards but also the film industry standards as it holds a lot of promise.
