Epic Games acquires Quixel for world's largest bank of photogrammetry data

In the ever-running pursuit of even more realistic graphics, Epic Games has announced that it has acquired Quixel, the world’s largest photogrammetry asset library. 

This enormous bank of scanning data is going to be used to empower creators using Unreal Engine – all 10,000+ mega scans will become free to use to developers using Epic’s game engine, and today 10 high resolutionpacks have been shared today for free on the Unreal Engine Marketplace, as well as a collection of assets from the popular Iceland collection used in the "Rebirth" cinematic short.

“Building photorealistic 3D content is an expensive endeavour in game development and film production. By coming together with Quixel to make Megascans free for all use in Unreal Engine, this level of artistry is now available to everyone from triple-A studios to indies,” said Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney.

This is big news for game makers large and small, as well as for Quixel’s 100+ staff, who will all join Epic’s team to continue working on what has been called “a groundbreaking virtual production demo for creating in-camera visual effects.”

Epic also released a behind the scenes look at how the technology works. It’s super impressive and continues to blur the lines between real footage, pre-rendered footage and real-time graphics. How this will be used to further video game development and make processes more efficient will be interesting to witness: