Virtually Unreal

As a part of this week’s Recreation Developer Convention (GDC) writer Epic Video games and developer Group Ninja has shone the sunshine on the gorgeous facial animation tech that might be used to convey life and character to the characters of long-in-development sequel Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.

The demonstration video exhibits off Unreal Engine’s “Metahuman” expertise, and options the face of actor Melina Juergens, who portrays the troubled Senua within the Hellblade sequence. The video begins with an excessive close-up of Senua’s eyes, slowing pulling again as she delivers a dramatic monologue, earlier than lastly being misplaced in flickering flame. Whereas the mixing of actuality and digital results will virtually at all times include some ingredient of the notorious “Uncanny Valley”, it will probably’t be denied that the expertise is mightily spectacular.

“This cloud-hosted device lets you create photorealistic digital people in your sport or expertise, with the simplicity of an RPG character creator, but with a stage of realism and customization that you just’ve by no means seen earlier than,” says Epic Video games’ chief expertise officer Kim Librerim.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II was first introduced again in 2019, with solely scant updates and previews provided on the grim-looking sequel. Given Hellblade II’s core method to psychological horror and deep, emotive characters, the Metahuman tech will permit the builders to finest seize Juergens as she delivers what is anticipated to be one other stellar lead efficiency. Ought to or not it’s a hit, we are able to seemingly count on to see different character-focused adventures experiment with the next-gen tech.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is at the moment in growth for PC and Xbox Sequence X.