Epic announces RealityScan – new smartphone 3D scanning app
Apr 04, 2022 by CGPress Staff
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Epic Games and CapturingReality have announced RealityScan, a new 3D scanning app designed to simplify the process of scanning real-world objects and sharing them via Sketchfab. The application was designed in collaboration with Quixel and aims to bring RealityCapture to smartphone devices using a simplified workflow that removes technical barriers to photogrammetry.
The app is available in a limited beta with the first 10,000 applicants able to try it out on iOS. An Android version is also expected to be released later this spring.To find out more and sign up, visit the Capturing Reality website.
Awesome! Can’t wait for the android version
Ditto.
Maybe once phones have micro ssd storage 4tb+ 🙂
well it depends on what you want to capture but you’ve got a point here
Does it make sense to push for these super highres 3d scanned meshes. Do any of the new games take advantage of them? I don’t quite see the benefit over properly modeled or sculpted assets.
Don’t get me wrong i’ts an insane proof of concept and it’s insane to have it in realtime. But would any serious game developer use megascans? All new games would look the same with the same assets and making your own megascans is a serious task in itself.
Am i missing the big picture?
They will converted to Nanite
I just read through the documentation of Nanite. It looks really interesting.
However these models still need to be created first. Epic ownes Quixel and UE so it makes sense to push Megascans but why? Who will seriously use Megascans existing libraries to create new original games?
Does this push out traditional asset creation in any way? Like i said am i missing the big picture… Who benefits from this feature besides it pushing what is possible within an engine.
It really looks like they are just have to do something with Quixel after buying it and that seems to be proof of concept puplications.
I think the idea with the RealityScan is exactly the issue you pointed out. Quixel themselves can put out so much content, so they’re trying to let everyone easily scan and enrich the library.
The first scans with this app probably won’t be very useful but with a later version and Nanite most real world objects can be used in tv, archviz or games and with a user base wide enough the asset library will keep growing. Keep in mind Epic included Sketchfab and Artstation in their ecosystem so we’ll have more and more options. I imagine some design brands will want to scan and upload their products too.
“I imagine some design brands will want to scan and upload their products too.”
That made me smile, by 1999-2000 i was working in a design brand doing visualizations of their furniture for clients. When i asked for cad files, the answer was NO. They were quite paranoid about someone copying their furniture. So i had to get the generic dimensions in their catalog and get from there.
I can totally see it for ArchViz. There is a high demand for photorealistic assets. For that very reason there are multiple ArchViz library sellers out there.
I just don’t see it for Games. Is epic expecting that game companies fire all concept designers because everyone will now use 3D scanned assets. (maybe more traditional sculpting will come back because of this) I’d love to see their market survey on how many games are in demand of 3D scanned assets.
Most games are highly stylized… i mean look at Minecraft etc. None of them will use it. I don’t see it on Android for storage reasons (yet). PUBG might make an island with their own scans (highly doubt it). Many other games are in a specific historical time which would require to scan specific items from national museums and other historical archives. Then those items would be different per Country or at least Continent. Sci-Fi… good luck scanning that. As for FPS games like Doom Eternal i highly doubt that high enough frame rates could be achieved.
Meanwhile there are existing pipelines that function really well. I think there are better 3d scanned hills to die on.
Again please don’t get me wrong i think what they managed to do is mind blowing and amazing.
Did you have a look at Battlefront I & II from Dice EA? a lot of their environments utilizes photorealistic 3D scans, although they did go through a lot of cleanup and optimization for their frostbite engine. But the quality is amazing!
have a look at this GDC presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_WaqCBp9zo
i had to read your comments few times to begin to understand it.
for some reason you are reading this as epic introducing the tech with the aim of making 3d artists straight up obsolete. in fact its the total opposite.
no, epic is not expecting gaming companies to fire their concept designers, wtf kind of comment is that? nowhere was this even hinted at.
concept designers conceptualize and design, a shocker i know.
this tool is for capturing existing things. at the very least as a kitbashing and prototyping tool it is quite a gamechanger. the results can be used as a reference mesh or a basemesh to iterate upon even.
lets say you are working on a mad max scenario, or a cyberpunk world or steampunk whatever. most of these world are grounded in our own reality which can be used as a starting point.
and yeah, studios fly out to locations and do photogrammetry on site or in musea, factories, ruins wherever. what is the issue here?
this tech seems to streamline the process and makes it available for anyone.
unreal engine is long past being merely a game engine though.
it´s used in multitude of industries(vfx, motion graphics, archviz, realtime presentations, events etc) and this particular app is one of a many stepping stones epic is laying out for the future where 3d creation is accessible to as wide a target group as possible.
even so stylizing a video game was and is often a way of overcoming the technical limitations, artistic hurdles and budget constraints- especially when it comes to indie games. if devs had realistic assets so accessible, they might opt for a more realistic look far more often. not to mention that having a realistic chair does not necessarily translate to “realism”. one can achieve outlandish and original aesthetics even while using more realistic and grounded assets.
i would suggest to download UE5 and the valley of the ancients demo if you have any worries about the performance aspect of high definition meshes ie. nanite.
Several things to unpack here. I might have looked at this unfairly from a bigger picture also looking at several other videos on their Youtube explaining tech stuff.
That was kinda my point… i see the 3D scanning thing as a minor addition to the given toolset but they seem to push it so hard making it look like that’s how to do it now.
Then looking at the multiple videos on “The Matrix Awakens” it becomes very clear that the 3D scanning part is minor to non existent and was more or less only used in what they called “Set Dressing” and i don’t think they specifically said so.
That is exactly my point… if Mc Donald’s would advertise delivery’s with SpaceX rockets, just because they could, does not mean it would be the best way to do it. And i think stuffing Games/VFX/Archiz etc full of Photogrammetry and Laserscans is in some way asking for a push along that line.
Considering how many millions they now invested into the photogrammetry/scanning sector they somewhat have to.
Are they? I don’t see it. Maybe 20% in the PC market…. Maybe
Before it was taking pics with your mirrorless/DSLR for the artists to work with, now we are talking heavy artillery. I can see both but… damn, not sure that effort pays off.
I got my first 3D Laser Scanner about 10 years ago and it’s great fun and i’ve used in in Productions but often just modeling/sculpting whatever i needed was still faster (and more rewarding).
It’s for crazy people like us. Trust me on this. Normal people do normal jobs crazy people do 3D/Coding/Mathematics etc. you can open the floodgates as wide as you want. Plus you also need (the fast) Hardware to go along with it.
Fully agree.
In the past yes. Very different situations now. Also think childrens game market, none of them need this. Or maybe we need Cocomelon videos made with Megascans 😀
Could Quake Pro League be played on a level like that?
there is a reason why battle royale and competitive twitchy games use simplified graphics. obviously the framerate is prioritised and nanite wouldnt be the best tech to employ, as of now at least. but you do realize that these scanned meshes can be baked down into LOD´s right?
also, there is no one size fits all in game development. you are using edge cases like minecraft and quake (champions?) as examples and extrapolating somehow that if it does not fit there, it wont be used period. that is just a fallacy. of course the next zelda wont be using scanned assets but there is a thriving indie horror industry which this can cater to perfectly, to name one example.
also nothing really stops me from using these models in my offline workflow right? pretty cool to be able to go into random antique shops and and virtually raid them.
obviously a cab driver wont just up and go do some 3d scanning after hours, but this app is obviously intended for wide consumption. main reason being that the whole workflow seems foolproof which is step one when it comes to adoption.
this scanning technology is also not something that needs to provide direct revenue for them. it doesnt even matter how large the target group is anyway. this isnt sunk cost for epic but obviously part of their R&D anyway, they are just leveraging it to further entice people to use their ecosystem.
down the line, if you are interested in profitability, the endgame is apparently their version of a metaverse and they are uniquely positioned to pull it off – far better than facebook.
i find your dismissals bizarre but wont go into it further.
what is a huge problem though is tencent owning the largest stake after sweeney, and mortality being a certainty there is a very probable chance of all of this stuff ending up belonging to CCP at some point, along with any social media VR metaverse that might sprout out of epic.
As i mentioned in an earlier post i’d love to see the market survey.
Basically you disagree because you see more use cases in games than me. I think for everything else we have a similar opinion just express it very differently which leads to misunderstandings. It’s a big topic and would be easier to be discussed IRL.
Time will tell. I like the foundation Epic is giving artists to build on.
I don’t dismiss anything and did not want to sound as if i do.
for sure, but market survey´s also have some inherent biases.i think these companies use a bunch of actual telemetry to drive their decisions, sadly.
its all part exciting, part worrying tbh.
in any case – have a good one mate.