It’s possible that the move is driving up the production of both games and films, as Unity has a very strong base in game development and is expanding into tools for digital movies. And the deal could help improve the quality of the game, between games made with the Unity game engine and its rival Unreal, which is made by Fortnite developer Epic Games. I spoke in an interview with Marc Whitten, general manager of Unity, and Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Weta Digital. The 77-year-old team of visually acclaimed artists from Weta will continue to work independently of the new wetaFX team. That studio will license its tools from Unity now. Both Epic Games Unreal and The Mandalorian are also ventured intoHollywood. Here’s a transcript of our interview. Above: Marc Whitten is the general manager of Unity. Image Credit: Unity. GamesBeat: What was your reasoning behind the deal? Marc Whitten: The key to meI strongly believe that regardless of word you have for the metaverse, it will need more 3D content. The 3D building will require an extraordinary increase. A single perspective, perhaps, really started to think about how we could create something that democratizes content creation. Before we talked, Prem and I were talking. And so, we realized that, between Unity and Weta, we had the tools to go do something extraordinary. One had this set of people who had built the most spectacular tools that have ever been invented in 3D content creation and then moved toward Unity, where we are packaging and democratizing our tools and making them more accessible. We’ve got to find great ways to work together, find the right transaction to work, and do something extraordinary. We’re extremely excited. Prem Akkaraju is the CEO of Weta Digital. Image Credit: Weta Digital. Prem Akkaraju: We showed clear results. It was just about Unity, why this deal, but, of course, Jackson started Weta with nothing. He knows what it’s like to be a creator without any tools or special software to create your vision on the screen. This is his kind of gift, if you desire, to the entire industry to give to the arts groups the tools that created Great Britain and the world – and many other great films. When we were looking for a partner, it became clear that Unity was the best in creating and shipping creator tools, supporting these tools, and living by the mantra that we live by, which is a relentless dedication to serving the story and creator. GamesBeat: Does that mean the ability expands into film for Unity? Does that actually help games a lot more? It’s both in the hands of each other. Unity is already used for virtual production, for pre-visualization and other areas of consciousness. But obviously nothing of this kind is done. We’re excited to allow everybody from Weta to down, so stay with them to continue to make amazing things, et al, also other film and media companies, and democratizing film creation, but we strongly believe there’s a potential to create a universal pipeline. A pipeline capable of targeting offline rendering, high-end visualization, and also real time, bringing those together so you can build the same asset, the same set of assets, the same simulation, and decide whether it’ll become a real-time event or if the mobile phone gets the best possible fidelity level. You will certainly see this moving toward real time games and other non-game, non-entertainment areas. Wherever there are artists, were going to give them great tools. Akkaraju: It’s really a convergence of both of us. Film and TV are moving to real time, and game fidelity waning towards film and TV quality. We were both skimming the line and meeting right near the corner. GamesBeat: How standard is our Weta technology? Whitten: The first thing that they have to think about is their architectural approach. There are so many tools that have come with this, but what are they really the most important is parts of a pipe. There exists one data model, one river, a set of tools that affect that, and then allows individuals to see how things progress to different places versus individual locations. Many artists can collaborate, do work in parallel and do amazing things around that area. First, I feel that if you want to talk about moving something like that to the cloud, or learn how you drive the interoperability, there’s a common data model and data plane. This is an awesome architectural place to start. Two things like USD, data portability, and ability to take content and move it between engines and tools and things like that are very important. Since we won’t see technical details of how these things are constructed, it’s important that we think of this one of them. GameBeat: What’s available to the users of Unity? The work started today at the beginning of the negotiations. We have more work to do, if we do that, and if we do not, we must enter all the closing conditions. Then we must discuss teams, get a chance to meet, start planning, transfer of knowledge. It is quite interesting, but for me, there’s still a lot more to talk about in the future. This isn’t just talking about the direction of the road. But it’s time to spend time with me talking about plans for the future. GamesBeat: How many people come over? Was it a few hundred, maybe so? Whitten: Yes, he’s around 275 people. They’re extraordinary. These are doctories. They are research scientists. They have been around for 20 years. If you go to the newspaper store and look for newspaper photographs, it will be a great experience. Akkaraju: You just get from Sheta, Sheta, Sheta. Whitten: It was so unbelievable. We were excited to have the opportunity to work with them even more closely. Weta Digital is going to make the Unitys game much harder in movies. Image credit: Unity! GamesBeat: Are there other Weta hotels, which are not included in the package? This company is created by a company called Weta. One hundred or one thousand people are very talented technical artists. And then around 300 are extraordinary tools engineers and graphics scientists. We’re taking all the tools and technology and critical teams that have built that, and we’ll be the other side. They will continue to do what they’re doing now. It’s time for you to work with them, together with those extraordinary artists, and continue to build the next version of what they’re doing. This relationship, by the way, was extremely important to us in this deal. It seems to be why these tools have been created, because in the last 15 to 20 years, they’ve been pushing up the art of the possible, and demanding more from the perfection level. We don’t want anything going on. We want to make sure that if anything, that accelerates. Weta FX is still doing awesome things in movies and TV, and is providing the tools and the technologies behind that, and the R&D innovation.
