Unreal Engine is looking to put the abilities of its realtime rendering tools into the hands of more automotive teams, with the launch of Automotive Configurator, a complete real-time configurator sample.
The free project shows user how to get past the initial steps to setting up their own configurator, and provides the opportunity to dive ‘under the hood’ of the technology used to create an interactive digital showroom.
Automotive Configurator enables users to explore all the different components of Unreal Engine – from the Blueprints used to the Variant Manager – without need for custom software and no C++ coding used.
According to Unreal Engine, virtually everything users can see can be achieved with regular, stock Unreal Engine 4.26.
The project shows off a completely interactive Audi A5 convertible model provided by Audi Business Innovation GmbH, set in an all-new immersive salt flat environment.
“Our goal with this project is to demonstrate how the standard feature set that exists in Unreal Engine can be used to achieve stunning results,” said an Unreal Engine spokesperson. “All materials come from the Automotive Materials Pack and the project uses existing lighting scenarios, along with in-engine features like ray tracing, Sequencer, Volumetric Cloud system, and Control Rig.”
User can customise the car with different paint colours, and change features often found in a dealership configurator, such as the wheels, trims, seats, interiors, and other standard variables.
When done, a short commercial can be rendered using the Movie Render Queue.
Unreal Engine further states that the sample also serves as a base for those in other industries to experiment with configurators for other types of product.
An upcoming webinar on 21 April 2021, will further deep dive into the Automotive Configurator explaining how to bring your own content into the sample – you can find out more here.
