Epic Games Courts Architects To Use Unreal Engine For Structural Design And Modeling

When people think about Unreal Engine, they probably picture some of the industry's hottest game titles that have been built around it. If you need a quick reminder, that list includes a couple of notable series: Gears of War, Batman: Arkham, Mass Effect, BioShock, Ark: Survival Evolved, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six series, not to mention Unreal Tournament - to name just a few.

Regardless, what you might not know is that Unreal Engine can be used for much more than games, and that's a message that Epic is hoping to get out there. The company's major target right now is with architecture, because its engine is perfectly suited for that kind of use - especially with its rich VR support.

To help promote this use case, Epic is going to be holding four webinars that will help lure designers in. Ultimately, Epic sees UE as a great tool for getting a digital prototype built quickly, so that it can be shown off to those involved as quickly as possible. And with VR, those same people could don a headset and get a proper feel for the real-life size of a design, objects in space and room layout.

The use of a game engine for architecture can't be understated, because UE is an industry-leading engine with tons of features that can help make simple scenes seem more alive. Designers could opt to just create a basic 3D template for their idea, or add some bells and whistles to better show off how lighting will enter each room, or even how long it'd require someone to walk from point A to B, for example. Of course, it would also be perfect for showing off the actual structural and finish materials that will be used.

With VR, the use of Unreal Engine for architecture is amplified. NVIDIA has in recent years shown off its upcoming headquarters in VR, to give press and analysts a feel for what the final product will be like. Those demos are done in Autodesk's 3ds Max, but it goes without saying that the cost-of-entry for UE is a lot easier to stomach.

If you're an architect or someone who's simply really curious about UE's use in architecture, be sure to hit up the link here and register for the first webinar.