Epic Games acquired the authors of Quixel Megascans. This is an extensive library of 2D and 3D assets. Soon it will be free for all Unreal Engine developers.
The acquisition of Epic Games was announced at the Unreal Academy presentation. The amount of the deal with the startup is unknown. As a result, Epic Games will join more than 100 Quixel employees. Epic resources will allow them to expand Megascans archives and improve their integration with various software. They will also improve the Bridge and Mixer toolsets to support the library.
Now Megascans has more than 10 thousand images of the real world with ultra—high resolution – both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. All of them, together with Bridge and Mixer, will become free for Unreal Engine developers with the release of the engine version 4.24. But several packages with assets are available now.
Creating photorealistic content in games and movies is not a cheap process. But thanks to the merger with Quixel <...> this art will become more accessible to both AAA development studios and indie.
CEO of Epic Games
Note that all Quixel Megascans users are promised an increase in monthly installations and preferential conditions for the purchase of an Unreal Engine license.
Quixel was created in 2011. Its headquarters are located in Sweden, but it carries out some of its operations in six other countries. The startup’s achievements made it possible to create a short film “Rebirth”, presented at GDC 2019. Megascans resources were also used in Destiny 2, Battlefield V and Metro: Exodus, according to VentureBeat.
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