Rob Di Figlia Talks Unreal Engine’s Growth in Animation at MipJunior  

CANNES, France  — As global companies scale back in investment in kids IP, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine offers a solution in cutting costs, speed up production, as well as refining quality and unlock new formats, Rob Di Figlia, Business Development Director, Epic Games told an industry audience at MipJunior on Saturday. 

He also showcased a medley of excerpts from key titles which have made use of Unreal Engine – which include Academy Award winner “War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko,” “Piece by Piece” and “Predator: Killer of Killers.”

In unveils, Di Figlio sneak-peeked a 90-secondcinematic trailer from Beta totally animated by Unreal Engine whose teaser was shown at Unreal Fest. The trailer will be available as part of free animation sample project teaming Unreal Engine and Agora Studios to produce free animation sample project, allowing animators to see what other animates are doing. Agora release the sample in the next few weeks, Figlio said.

A game engine software platform most famous for powering “Fortnite,” Unreal Engine made waves with its virtual production usage in “The Mandalorian.” At MipJunior’s Epic Games session, “Fast, Fresh, Unreal: Real-Time Kids Animation Is Here,” Di Figlia argued that Unreal Engine is as relevant to animation as live action. 

“In 2019, though, right about when I was starting at Unreal Engine, there were probably less than five animation studios that we knew about using Unreal in any material way. But since then it’s grown to well over 100,” Di Figlio said at MipJunior.

“Star Wars” and “The Mandalorian” really put us in the spotlight. But animation has been a huge area of focus for us, and we’ve really seen a growth over the last five years of animation studios, particularly series animation studios, that have been transitioning from their traditional CG pipelines into real time pipelines,” Di Figlia said. 

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