The third edition of Unreal Day: find out how it was and what the local and foreign lecturers have to say
While we watch the after-movie and flip through the photos to collect our impressions, it would be good to recap what we went through on November 24 at Unreal Day. SGA, in cooperation with 3Lateral as part of Epic Games, organized an all-day event this year dedicated to Unreal Engine (UE), a platform that greatly changes the way we create.
Unreal Day Prequel
This year, the program grew so much that it became too big for one day and poured into the prequel held the previous day as an ideal warm-up for the main conference. More than 70 students and UE beginners had the opportunity to participate in four entry-level workshops on October 23, which were held on the premises of our partners in the field of education: in the Crater Training Center, at the Metropolitan University, the SAE Institute and the Faculty of Media and Communications.
At the same time, in the educational hub of Epic Games in the Science and Technology Park Novi Sad, a workshop was held for 15 advanced UE users who expressed their desire to become certified UE instructors. The workshop was held by Joan da Silva (Epic Games) and Camille Rivière (Epicenter Studio) from France. On this occasion, we spoke with Joan:
THE Unreal Day
Unreal Day itself started with ten masterclasses. More than 150 participants had the opportunity to listen to experts from the USA, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia and, of course, Serbia. The topics of these two-hour workshops were varied and we wanted to give you the first-hand impressions of two lecturers, one local and one foreign.
Sava Živković, our noted Director, illustrated his creative filmmaking process using CG animation for two hours. When asked how he sees the future of this area, Sava says:
At the same time, our guest from Spain David Garcia (Magic Fennec), whose colleague we hosted and interviewed during the last Unreal Day, held a masterclass dedicated to the demystification of virtual production. It’s important to remove the stigma that UE is difficult to use, so David says:
After a long lunch break, which marked the transition from a full-day pro program (charged) to an afternoon open program (free with registration), the two-hour Creators Economy Summit segment was about the different ways creators can monetize their work on 3D assets, Fortnite islands or through collaborations with brands. We talked about the creator ecosystem within Unreal and Fortnite, and how to succeed as a solo creator, or gradually build your team or even an entire studio.
Another novelty this year was the Expo zone. Visitors were able to test first-hand some of the cutting-edge technologies from the Epic Games ecosystem, such as RealityScans and RealityCapture, or MetaHuman Creator and Animator. They could also learn all about the new FAB and how it works, while it launched globally just two days before Unreal Day. That’s why it was a real privilege for all visitors to have the opportunity to learn everything about FAB directly “from the source”, either during the lectures of Katerina Bulatova, who runs FAB within Epic Games, or through direct conversations with her and her colleagues at the FAB stand.
Adjacent to the Expo Zone, another program segment called Peer-to-peer Dev Geekout was introduced this year. Visitors, or rather participants, had the space and complete freedom to be very nerdy with their colleagues and UE enthusiasts, to discuss opportunities or challenges that creating and producing in UE entails. In addition to several more technical lectures, given by guests from Croatia, France and Russia, this segment was moderated by Vanja Knežević (Eucledian Studios), so we asked him to convey how he sees our UE community:
The segment that we have repeated from the previous edition due to great interest is the Asset Portfolio Review. All visitors who had their art projects and portfolios with them, or anywhere online, could talk to our partners from PackDev Interactive and get valuable feedback on how to improve their models, or how to better position themselves on the platforms.
The main part of the evening program was the Showcase and Keynote program. The Showcase consisted of six short presentations by local and foreign experts. We heard about porting and localizing video games, filmmaking and animation in the Unreal Engine, the importance of education and the ins and outs of how the RealityCapture system works.
A short break from the presentation was provided by the UNREAL JAM Pitching & Awards Ceremony, when we watched the presentations of the best games created at the game jams that were part of this year’s event. There were two of them: the two-day UEFN Game Jam, held in Novi Sad, and the ten-day online Unreal Jam, open to participants from nine countries in the region. The awards for the best games were provided by Pack Dev Interactive, AMD and Epic Games.
The theme of the UEFN Jam was Serbia and Japan, and the winning game was presented by the team Ramonda. The three best Unreal Jam teams pitched their games to the jury, and their theme was The only way out is through. First place went to the Emerald Tablet Games team. Here you can get detailed information about these games and also play them!
We ended the official part of the program with three Keynote lectures. The first two conveyed to the audience the topics and atmosphere of the morning masterclasses. Attila Szigeti (DIGIC Pictures) talked about the five biggest pitfalls of producing cinematics in engines. Next, Alex Coulombe (Agile Lens) showed how it is possible to develop a 5,000-square-foot VR showroom in UE 5. We also convey his observations related to Unreal and the VR/XR domain:
None other than 3Lateral founder and VP of Digital People Technology at Epic Games, Vladimir Mastilović, dotted the “i”. He described the incredible speed with which this ecosystem is developing, pointing out that until recently there were a total of 75,000 digital humans of all kinds in the world, and now we already have 7.5 million MetaHumans! We’ve heard more great news regarding the new capabilities that UE 5 brings in its next version, but they’ll remain exclusive to Unreal Day attendees. Which is also a lesson for the future – JOIN US!
Unreal Day ended with a party at the Karmakoma club, with a musical selection signed by their resident, kîr. Those who could stand on their feet after a day filled with content to this extent continued their “unreal” time until the wee hours.
All of this, of course, would not be possible without SGA’s dedicated partners: first and foremost 3Lateral as part of Epic Games, with whom SGA has been working closely on Unreal Day since its first edition in 2022, as well as on a number of other initiatives. PackDev Interactive was with us again this year, as well as Materriya Talent Development, Crater Training Center, Metropolitan University, SAE Institute Belgrade and the Faculty of Media and Communications. This year, the event was supported by the French Institute and the Metropol Palace Hotel.
While we continue to collect our own impressions and yours, too, and think about how to make the event even better, we will make you happy that one thing is certain – see you next year!