The Unreal Engine graphics engine is developed by Epic Games largely in its Montreal offices, and its leaders dream of seeing it adopted by organizations in architecture, education or other fields. But don’t talk about metaverses!
We can blame the big boss of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, for having ruined the reputation of the metaverse. He promised, somewhere in 2021, that he would stake his entire company’s future on immersive digital environments…until he realized in early 2023 that maybe there was better things to do. on the side of artificial intelligence to make the shareholders of Facebook’s parent company smile again.
They smile today with beautiful teeth. Meta fired a quarter of its employees and has since doubled in value.
Many creators of immersive digital content are also happy to no longer have to explain that, yes, their works live in virtual, augmented or mixed reality. That they have created complete virtual worlds accessible via the Internet, with or without a headset. But no, it’s not “Zuck’s metaverse”.
“Museums, universities, cultural organizations, many of them want to digitize their archives or their works, but they don’t necessarily do it in the metaverse”, explains Marc Petit, who leads the Montreal team of Epic Games, which works on the Unreal Engine graphics engine.
These organizations that are initiating a digital shift are a market to conquer for Epic Games. The American giant also offers them free access to its platform, which goes far beyond video games. Putting the Hillside project online is a demonstration of what it is possible for them to achieve with its technology.
To carry out this project, it took programming and also recording. The people of Habitat 67 also participated in the project, which includes the identical reconfiguration of the apartment that belonged to the architect Moshe Safdie. The Epic Games team had to spend three days digitizing and modeling everything, using drones, in particular.
“We wanted to demonstrate how we can create content that can be used in different ways, whether to be seen online, to be displayed on a mobile device or in a virtual environment like the metaverse,” explains Marc Petit.
“Unreal Engine is capable of generating static or interactive media content for all of these environments. We think it can be useful in video games, in special effects in cinema or on TV, and elsewhere,” says the Montreal software veteran, who was part of the Softimage adventure in another era.
In fact, it would take very few adaptations for Habitat 67 revisited in the Hillside project to become a region in a virtual world like that of Fortnite… in principle. Because the reality is more down to earth. “There would be complications because of the intellectual property of each other, but otherwise, yes, we could add virtual creations like Habitat 67 in digital worlds like that of Fortnite. »
” Everything is possible. »
More than game
Montreal may have missed its chance 50 years ago to build a utopian neighborhood combining urban density, a tight-knit community and abundant local services. Montreal Inc. does not seem to want to miss its chance to take advantage of the new boom in digital technologies like Unreal Engine.
Companies like MELS Studios and aviation training giant CAE are using these technologies in ways that are just as serious as they are fun.
Carlos Cristerna, who completed the Hillside project for Epic, would like to see other organizations do the same. “The education sector is probably the most important,” he says. I studied architecture, but I would have liked to be in computer science. Here you can join the two. Designers can better express their vision through technology. It allows you to get inside their heads and get a better idea of what they are dreaming of. »
In its simplest form, Habitat 67 is a distinctive looking apartment building. In the mind of its creator, they are residences with everything a community needs, such as schools, convenience stores, as well as workspaces, offices, workshops, integrated into a single development.
This was part of the utopian ideas of architecture that emerged in the 1960s. Everything was questioned, everything was possible.
Half a century later, digital technologies are giving creators a taste for dreaming. “It’s important for the youngest to experience this”, blows Carlos Cristerna.