Epic Games buys company behind facial animations God of War and Hellblade – Gaming – News

Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and the widely used Unreal Engine, has acquired a company specializing in technology to create facial animations for games and movies. That technology has been used in God of War and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Epic Games says in a press release that the acquired Cubic Motion has long been a partner and one of the leading players in automated facial animation technology, which is used in games and films, among other things. The technology that Epic Games will get its hands on will now more often become part of the toolset of Unreal Engine users. The amount of money involved in the acquisition has not been disclosed.

Cubic Motion will collaborate with Epic Games, acquired in January 2019 Lateral, a company that develops tools to digitize human appearances and movements in a realistic way. According to the Gamesindustry.biz website all Cubic Motion employees are said to be transferring to Epic Games, although the acquired company will continue to work for existing customers.

Cubic Motion’s technology has been used in various games, including God of War and Marvel’s Spider-Man. The company is also behind the facial animations in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which runs on the Unreal Engine. In 2016 showed Epic Games at the Game Developers Conference on how to translate a person’s flesh-and-blood facial movements into a character in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice in real time. Cubic Motion and Epic Games also worked together previously two demonstration videos of ‘credible photo-realistic digital people’.

–