They made most of money from Fortnite and games. For features, no one is paying. Also “160 major motion pictures and episodic TV shows to date”. Haha. nice marketing.
Obviously as a game engine, most of their revenue would tied to games and their game licensing. No one claimed otherwise.
You said it was not used for Mandolorian’s second season, which was objectively wrong. If stating the fact that Epic’s software has been used for film and tv is written off as marketing, then I suppose any positive information that goes against your bias would be as well, right? I wonder if every time a known company joins the Blender fund, and the Blender Foundation announces it, we should just laugh and say “haha nice marketing” right? There is some value in finding a metric for usage/support, which is why people bring it up. If that ends up being good marketing, so what? It doesn’t change anything.
The point is that it is being used and it is growing in use, even within the film/vfx sector. Epic is investing in those sectors because they see some form of ROI from it, or at the very least no serious losses as a result.
It sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to Epic, and you are letting that bias cloud your ability to look at this subject in a neutral fashion. Regardless of if you believe they will turn into some big bad “drug dealing” (your words) villain or not, the simple fact remains their shake up of the industry is still going to be a good thing for the industry.
If they turn sour, then there will be a reaction and new alternatives will form, as has been the case for years. For now you have only benefits and a positive disruption to a industry in desperate need of a shake up.
Also keep in mind when a bunch of companies in the USA gathered under different conglomerates in the past, they would complete with each other so fiercely that they kept dropping their prices to one up the other. Who benefited the most from that? The consumers. Enjoy the competition.
Besides large productions like the Mandalorian it is also used for TV commercials and stuff like that. I recently did the background/foreground stuff in Unreal for two Commercials which were then filmed in one of these “LCD screen sets”.
I guess that has been made by Epic lawyers. If it is, and is final, looks pretty clear.
It is amazing it is so hard to just state a simple fact nowadays.
Yes, ILM still used UE as more like previz for MD2. But, not a single image on those LCD screen is rendered with UE. You can say those previz is also a virtual prosuction. But, most people think in-camera effect with LCD projection as virtual production.
Believing Epic’s marketing slogan is looking at this subject in a neutral fashion?
“Epic is investing in those sectors because they see some form of ROI from it” is exactly what drug dealers do in the beginning. You give it for very cheap or even free If you have enough cash.
“the simple fact remains their shake up of the industry is still going to be a good thing for the industry.” is it fact? Really? Really?
I already linked the video where they explain where Unreal was used, pre-viz was part of it. VR is being leveraged to set up scenes and plan out shots. So what if they choose to render in a specialized, in-house piece of software? Unreal is still an integral part of the pipeline. What are you even arguing here?
Tossing out a number tied to where its been used is not a slogan. Do you even know what slogans are? A slogan would be like “The most trusted name in news”, it describes the brand and is tied to the personality or brand image they want to depict. Saying, Unreal has been used on X number of film/tv is not a slogan. PERIOD. Again, what are you even arguing against?
You are simply being hyperbolic and projecting emotional belief by conflating Epic to drug dealers. Since you have nothing constructive to add to this subject, I think we are done here.
Not everyone is ILM. There are plenty of other production and VFX companies using straight UE for virtual production because right now UE is still the most complete commercially available package for that that type of thing. If/When ILM makes Stagecraft or Helios available as a tool then we can see if that get any uptake (I’d argue UE would still get used since its free). ILM has the money and resources to spend creating a full package for this type of thing. A smaller company focused on commercials, or television work would probably not have the same resources available and would use off the shelf software and Epic is so far the only one really providing that at the moment.
Epic like most companies in the 3D space makes a lot of revenue in relation to UE in support and training. Epic has offices in pretty much every major market with staff there specifically to support the engine as well as for training on how to use the engine. If you want to see how this has paid off, look at Epic’s support of the Asian market. With UE3, there wasn’t much support for the Asian market. Epic opened up an office for outreach, support and training and now UE is being used heavily by Japanese and Asian developers. Everything from Capcom, Namco, to Square Enix. Most of the major Japanese fighting games released over the last 5 years run on UE. That growth in that market will only accelerate when UE5 gets released.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if the film work is partially what helped drive the developments for Unreal 5’s major improvements. On set or in the studio, time is money, so constantly rebuilding scenes and lighting was probably not an ideal workflow. Epic had more incentive and production use to finally get dynamic global illumination added, as well as their nanite technology ( virtualized micropolygon geometry) which lets them toss in high poly Zbrush/scanned models into the engine and still remain usable in real time. Plus the new world partition system allows for much larger world building.
All this is something that would have been extremely important for film production. Such features might not have happened without some presence in the film space.
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May I suggest that anyone “stating facts” support their “facts” with some type of legit documentation?
On a related note, as much as the film industry would like to see itself as the biggest consumer of new technology, it really isn’t. As it’s been pointed out, advertising, industrial, and TV/news are some of the biggest client base for virtualized sets.
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Yes, that’s what I am saying: it seems clear to me. I mean, clear enough to delete my account 
I think it is a combination over overall perception along with the direct revenue. Everyone is vying for a space in the crowded ceiling of marketing white noise.
Added to that people with a general good nature about things which is rare. It is a rare combination. They have a lot of money. They could spend that on various non-profit tax write-offs and wild marketing campaigns or they could spend about the same money to buy a bunch of cool stuff, give it away, in the end raise the visibility and use of your product.
It is this last simple thing that can not be understated. Use of your product. RenderMan has done pretty much the same thing, for the same reason. Lower price, wider use with Non Commercial and so on. It is the footprint that is important.
It might just be, that in some cases doing the right thing is a positive commercially.
This is the essence of Blender’s model. No money made from Blender. But the donations and contributions as a result, keep the programmers fed.
It is the era of hype and marketing. Who cares the fact?