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CreateCG use FovoRender in Unreal 4.25.

April 19, 2021

Innovative visualisation studio CreateCG uses FovoRender to produce highly immersive ultra-wide CGI showcase images.


CreateCG is a CGI production studio based in London that specialises in real-time automotive and product visualisation. Amongst other 3D rendering tools, they use Unreal Engine to produce hyper-realistic real-time renders for prestige automotive clients and others. 


Fovotec has entered into a development partnership with CreateCG and has been working closely with Ben Walker, CreateCG Creative Director and ex-Burrows head of 3D, on a showcase rendering project using FovoRender Unreal 4.25 with hybrid ray-tracing. Before Ben started this collaboration with Fovotec, he used the standard version of Unreal - an engine based on simulating physical cameras’ properties.


Whilst Unreal is an extremely powerful tool for visualisation artists, Ben was already aware it had some limitations. Notably, it is challenging to capture a natural, wide view from confined spaces without producing images that look distorted due to the way it simulates camera lenses. 


‘Ben said, “’ Getting a camera lens into a tight space normally results in a trade-off between cropping the view or distorting it massively to fit everything in. This compromise is always a cause of frustration when setting up automotive shots.’’

What we did 

Initially, Ben was introduced to FovoRender, a rendering technology designed for enterprise 3D visualisation professionals using real-time 3D Engines Unity or Unreal. We then had a mini-training session to explain how everything works and ultimately allow him to gain and explore its features’ full potential.


Ben said, “Initial impressions are great! It is immediately clear that FovoRender is a very powerful tool to have as a CGI artist.”


Fovotec’s main goal was to satisfy that FovoRender solves the pain points experienced by CreateCG and 3D artists using the standard tools in Unreal. Once FovoRender was up and running, it was straightforward to use, and few challenges were presented based on feedback. Any technical issues that have arisen have been resolved promptly, allowing a good collaboration between the two companies.

What we achieved

‘’I’ve so far only used this on arch-viz scenes, but it does look very promising. I’m looking forward to testing it out on automotive projects so that I can test it against the same issues I described in my arch-viz projects.’’ - Ben Walker. 


Using FovoRender in Unreal, CreateCG can now adjust the render’s visual appearance in new and exciting ways, all in real-time, to immediately see the changes and alterations in an output render. As mentioned by Ben, this is a very powerful tool to help get angles signed off with art directors quickly. FovoRender has way more versatility than the standard camera-based engine. 


One of the many features of FovoRender that benefited CreateCG is the ability to capture natural-looking visuals of confined spaces without the usual drawbacks expected from wide-angle lenses. As Ben shared with us, it is the main reason he would certainly recommend it to others.


The images below show some real-time renders produced from an architectural interior scene. 

Created using:

  • Unreal 4.25
  • Hybrid Ray Tracing
  • FovoRender 

Rendering and shot planning credit -  Ben Walker @ CreateCG 

https://createcg.com/


Architectural Scene credit - Epic

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/


Next Steps:

Watch this space for more projects

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